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The Pyrenees 



TAINE'S AA^ORKS. 



/. A TOUR THROUGH THE TYRE- 

NEES. 
II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART. 

III. NOTES ON ENGLAND. 

IV. ENGLISH LITERATURE. 2 vols. 
V. ON INTELLIGENCE. 

VI. THE PHILOSOPHYOF GREEK ART. 
VII. THE PHIL OSOPHYOF AR TIN THE 
NE THERLANDS. 
VIII. THE IDEAL IN ART. 
IX. ITALY, ROME AND NAPLES. 
X. ITAL Y, FLORENCE AA^D VENICE. 

Hknry Holt & Co., Publishers, 

25 Bond SruiiiiT, New York. 








^fmnn i^^mi. 



n 



Tlie Publishers take pleasure in acknowledging their indebt- 
edness to Mr. Henry Bi-ackburn for valuable hints in the 
arrangement of this volume. 



A TOUR THROUGH 



The Pyrenees 



HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE 

Author of " A History oy English Literature" ^'Travels in Italy" etc. 



TRANSLATED BY 



J. SAFFORD FISKE 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GUSTAVE DO RE 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1875 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

HENR.Y HOLT, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



^' 



\,^' 



^^ 



John F. Jhow & Son, 

i'binters and klectrotvpbrs, 

IS I'aiidc'.ualer aireet^ 

NliW VOf<K. 



TO MARCELIN. 

(emile planat.) 

This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyre- 
nees ; I have been there, and that is a praise- 
worthy circumstance ; many writers, including some 
of the longest-winded, have described these scenes 
without leaving home. 

And yet I have serious shortcomings to confess, 
and am deeply humbled thereat. I have not been 
the first to scale any inaccessible mountain ; I have 
broken neither leg nor arm ; I have not been eaten 
by the bears ; I have neither saved any English 
heiress from being swept away by the Gave, nor 
yet have I married one ; I have not been present 
at a single duel ; my experiences include no tragic 
encounter with brigands or smugglers. I have 
walked much, and talked a little, and now I recount 
the pleasures of my eyes and ears. What sort of a 
man can he be who comes home from a long ab- 
sence bringing all his limbs with him, is not the 
least in the world a hero, and yet does not blush to 



viii DEDICATION. 

confess it ? In this book I have talked as if with 
thee. There is a Marcelin whom the pubHc knows, 
a shrewd critic, a caustic wit, the lover and deline- 
ator of every worldly elegance ; there is another 
Marcelin, known to but three or four, a learned 
and thoughtful man. If there are any good ideas 
in this work, half of them belong to him ; to him, 

then, I restore them. 

H. TAINE. 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK I.— THE COAST. 



CHAPTER I.— BORDEAUX.— ROYAN . 
II.—LESLANDES.—BAYONNE 
III.— BIARRITZ.— SAINT-JEAN-DE-L UZ 



35 



BOOK II.— THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



CHAPTER I.~-DAX. — ORTHEZ . 

II.—PAU . . . . 
III—EAUX-BONNES . 
IV.—IANDSCAPES . 

V. —EA UX- CHA UDES . 
VI. — THE INHABITANTS 



57 

85 

117 

138 
169 



BOOK III.— THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



CHAPTER I — ON THE WAY TO LUZ 

II. — LUZ 

///. —SAINTS A UVE UR. —BAREGES 
IV. — CAUTERETS .... 



225 
250 
266 
290 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER v.— SAINT-SAVIN 

VI.-GAVARNIE 

VII.— THE BERGONZ.— THE PIC DU MIDI 
" VIII.— PLANTS AND ANIMALS 



PAGE 
326 



BOOK- IV.— BACxNERES AND JATCHON. 

CHAPTER I.—FROMLUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE 389 
II.—BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE . . . .412 

I /I — THE PEOPLE 420 

IV-IPIE ROAD TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON . 468 

V.—LUCIION 485 

VI.— TOULOUSE 509 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

THE PINES 3 

THE RIVER AFTER A STORM 5 

THE PINES NEAR ROYAN 7 

THE BROAD RIVER 9 

BORDEAUX '° 

TAIL-PIECE " 

LES LANDES '2 

LES LANDES (SECOND VIEW) H 

TAIL-PIECE i6 

A STREET IN BAYONNE 17 

BAYONNE HARBOR 19 

p£ DE PUYANE 22 

THE BURNING CASTLE 25 

HEAD-PIECE 33 

THE PIERCED ROCK 36 

TAIL-PIECE 39 

THE VILLA EUGENIE 4° 

CLIFFS NEAR SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ 42 

COAST NEAR SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ 45 

TAIL-PIECE 46 

LOUIS XIV. AND ANNE OF AUSTRIA 47 

THE POLITENESS OF TO-DAY 48 

THE POLITENESS OF OTHER DAYS 49 

" JE VOUS LE RENDS." ; S3 

A SPLENDID CREATION 54 

DAX 57 

DAX (SECOND VIEW) 59 

CASTLE OF ORTHEZ 61 

FROISSART 6z 

A HOME OF LEGENDS 63 

" THAT STOUT CORNIFIC DOCTOR " 66 

COUNT DE FOIX AT SUPPER 68 

THE COUNT DE FOIX'S HOSPITALITY 71 

A FRENCH " CONDUCTOR " 72 

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE DO NOT KILL GASTON" 74 

GASTON IN THE TOWER OF ORTHEZ 76 

COUNT DE FOIX 77 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



I'AGE 

TAIL-PIECE 78 

CHAPTKR-HEAUING 79 

THE VALLEY OE OSSAU 82 

A DESTRUCTION OE SENTIMENT 84 

AVENUE OE THE CHATEAU AT PAU 85 

ARMS OE HENRY IV 87 

COURT OE THE CHAT1:AU AT PAU -SB 

PAU 90 

JEANNE D'ALBRET, 92 

A MORNING'S SPORT 94 

liATTLE IN THE STREETS OE EAUSE 97 

SULLY 100 

MAR(;UERITE OE NAVARRI-. 104 

ENTERTAINING THE LADIES 106 

THE PARK. AT PAU 108 

PROTRACTING A REVERIE 109 

riC DU Mini D'OSSA U. Ill 

AN EXHORTATION 113 

NEAR (;AN 114 

THE VALLEY OK OSSAU 115 

ROAD TO EAUX BONNES n6 

THE PROMENADE 117 

NEAR EAUX BONNES 118 

A RAINY DAY AT EAUX BONNES 119 

TAKING THE WATERS 121 

TAKING THE WATERS (SECOND VIEW) 122 

" MUSIC HATH CHARMS " 123 

A NATIVE GENIUS 125 

DOLCF. FAR NIENTE 126 

OUR AMATEURS 127 

THI'. P,EECHES 128 

TH E SUMMIT OF THE GER 131 

TAIL-PIECE 133 

THE ART OF PLEASURE 134 

THE " JEU DU CANARD" 135 

PLEASURE WITHOUT THE AR'I' 137 

•• A LANDSCAPE " 138 

EXCELSIOR 139 

THE VALENTIN PALLS AT DISCOO 140 

CASCADE OE THE VALENTIN 142 

PATH TO THE GORGE OF THE SERPENI' 144 

THE CAVE 146 

A DISTANT EALI 148 

SOLITUDE ,50 

A WATER-POWER ,52 

THE MIC;HTY STEMS 155 

HAUI 157 

A TOO DISTANT LANDSCAPE . . ,59 



PAGE 

A VANTAGE-POINT i6i 

THE PEAKS 163 

ABOVE GABAS 166 

" TO HIM WHO, IN LOVE OF NATURE " 168 

AMONG THE CLOUDS 169 

ROUTE TO EAUX CHAUDES 170 

ON THE ROAD TO EAUX CHAUDES 172 

" A WILD AND SUNNY NEST " 174 

" COLD AND SAD " 175 

NEAR EAUX CHAUDES 177 

" EGYPT BEFORE THE COMING OF WARRIORS '" 182 

SOMEBODY'S JOVE 185 

THE INHABITANTS 186 

FIDDLERS THREE 187 

"A SORT OF ROUNDELAY" 189 

" THEY CLUMSILY BENT THE KNEE " 192 

"FIVE OR SIX OLD WOMEN " 194 

THE PEAK OF THE GER 196 

MEETING A I,ADY 200 

A STOCK-DEALER 200 

YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT 201 

DISINTERESTED HOSPITALITY 201 

AN AMATEUR SKETCH 203 

THE DEATH OF ROLAND 206 

" A ^\^.LL-TO-DO PEASANT " 207 

CHIVALRIC WAR 209 

SCIENTIFIC WAR 2°9 

THE BATTLE OF RONCEVAUX 212 

■'WHEN FIGHTING IS TO BE DONE" 214 

HENRY OF BEARN 215 

"AT THE HEAD OF THE ARMV^" 217 

" VERY DARING " 219 

MLLE. DE SEGUR • 220 

GASSION'S BOB-TAIL 222 

ON THE WAY TO LUZ 225 

A SMILING COUNTRY 226 

" WHAT WE ALL HEARD THIS NIGHT".. 228 

ORTHON'S TRANSFORMATION 234 

LETTING THE DOGS LOOSE 235 

" THE RACE OF FAMILIARS AND FAIRIES " 237 

A BROODING SUPERSTITION, 238 

CHAPEL OF LESTELLE 240 

NEAR LOURDES 242 

GORGE OF PIERREFITTE 244 

" HEAVY CLOUDS ROSE IN THE SKY " 248 

THE GORGE OPENED UP 249 

OLD HOUSE OF THE TEMPLARS AT LUZ 250 

RUIN OF A CHATEAU NEAR LUZ 253 



PAGE 

•'MAN GETS FROM THE DESERT AS MUCH AS HE CAN WREST FROM 

IT ■' 257 

THE VALLEY OF LUZ 259 

PROGRESS 261 

SAINT-PIERRE 263 

"THIS HEIGHT IS A DESERT" 264 

" NO ONE COMES " 265 

THE MEDLEVAL TOURISTS 266 

SAINT-SAUVEUR 267 

THE GAVE AT SUNSET 272 

RUNNING WATERS 274 

" THE POPLARS RISE ONE ABOVE ANOTHER " 27s 

KAR^GES 277 

THE MILITARY HOSPITAL 278 

TAIL-PIECE 279 

THE FIRS 283 

"OUT FROM THE CIVIL WARS"' 287 

" THESE OLD WASTED MOUNTAINS " 288 

MADAME DE MAINTENON 289 

A FEW KLANDISHM ENTS 290 

THE PA'JIENTS OF THE OLDEN TIME 291 

THE LAKE OF GAUHE 293 



DIANA. 



295 



NI:aR PONT D'ESPAGNE 299 

THE HEPTAMERON 301 

STOR.M AT CAUTERETS 302 

VALLEY OF THE GAVE IN A STORM 304 

NICAR THE LAKE OF GAUBE 307 



CAUTERICTS 



3" 



THE FOAMING GAVE 313 

HENRY VHI. AND FRANCIS 1 314 

A FRESHldT IN THE MOUNTAINS 315 

"A HORRIBLE WORLD" 3,6 

ABBEY OF SAINT-SAVIN 3,8 

CASCADE OF CERLSEY, NEAR PONT D'ESPAGNE 320 

PRAYER 325 

ENJOYING THE SCENERY 326 

A MOUNPAIN FUNERAL 328 

THE ARTIGUE BRIDGE AT SCIA 330 

VI I.LAGE OF GfcDRES 333 

CHAOS 337 

"IHK TUMBLED ROCKS" 339 

•■>/c- irvii 3^3 

THE MOUNTAIN SIDE 343 

TM E " liKliCIIh: Dli RO/.AXD " 344 

THE AMPIIITHE.VrRK NEAR GAVARNIE 346 

■■Till'. •IIIIkrEENTH CASCADE ON IHE LEFT" 347 

I HE CASCADE AS SEEN FROM THE INN 349 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

RECIPROCITY 351 

THE APPRECIATIVE 352 

ASCENT OF THE BERGONZ 354 

THE EAGLES 355 

MONT PERDU 359 

AN EARLY INHABITANT 362 

SCENERY DURING AN ASCENT 3^5 

" ALLEZ DOUCEMENT; ALLEZ TOU JOURS " 366 

A STIMULATING DREAM 367 

THE PINES 369 

A SHOWER IN A FOREST OF BRUSH-FIRS .373 

CONTEMPLATION 37^ 

A POOR DANCER 377 

"THE ISARD DWELLS ABOVE THE BEAR" 378 

.AN ARGUMENT , • 379 

A HERD OF GOATS 381 

"THE HAPPIEST ANIMAL IN CREATION".... 3S3 

DISTINGUISHED NATIVES 386 

IN MOUNT CAMPANA 389 

BOS DE BENAC IN EGYPT - • 39° 

"THEY TRAVERSED A WALL OF CLOUDS" 395 

" MORNING DAWNED " 39^ 

"THE HALL WAS FULL" 398 

"STRANGE IMAGES ROSE IN HIS BRAIN" -. 400 

BENAC A HERMIT 403 

BEYOND LOURDES 404 

CITY OF TORBES 406 

MEPHISTOPHELES • 4" 

BAGNERESDE-BICORRE . • • • • 412 

ONE OF THE FIRST PATRONS 419 

SOCIETY - .... 420 

AN OLD CAMPAIGNER 422 

A YOUNG CAMPAIGNER 422 

A MAN OF PEACE. 422 

A MODEL MAN 4^3 

IN DANGER .■ • 424 

VARIOUS TOURISTS 428 

THE LAC D'OO 43i 

TOURISTS COMME IL FA UT. 434 

FAMILY TOURISTS 435 

DINING TOURISTS 43^ 

LEARNED TOURISTS 438 

A MAN OF ESPRIT. 444 

CONNOISSEURS 44^ 

BEETHOVEN • 447 

A SERENADER 454 

A HISTORIAN 456 

A PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER 458 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

THE PLEASURES OF WINTER 461 

A DISCUSSION WITHIN BOUNDS 463 

HEAVEN ■ 464 

THE SOURCE OF THINGS 4<56 

GRACE A T MEAT 467 

THE REST OF THE WEARY 468 

AT THE HOTEL OF THE GREAT SUN 47° 

NEAR LUCHON 473 

CHAPELLE AND BACHAUMONT 47G 

VALLEY OF LUCHON 481 

UJ?BS IN RURE 484 

HEAD-PIECE 485 

A TALENTED FAMILY 487 

LUCHON 491 

SUPER-BAGNERES 493 

"ALL WAS IN HARMONY" 495 

NEAR CASTEL-VIEIL 497 

RUINS OF CASTEL-VIEIL 499 

THE MALADEITA 5,03 

"THESE MOUNTAIN SKELETONS " 505 

"A CLEFT IN THE ETERNAL ROCK"' 507 

TAI L-PIECE 508 

HEAD-PIECE 5^9 

ST. HERTRAND DE COMINGES 510 

TOULOUSE 512 

SAINT SERININE AT TOULOUSE 515 

CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, TOULOUSE 519 

THE MUSEUM AT TOULOUSE 521 

DATUR I/ORA QUIETI 523 



BOOK I. 

THE COAST. 




CHAPTER I. 



B OR BE A UX.—RO YAN. 



The river is so fine, that before going to 
Bayonne I have come down as far as Royan. 
Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on 
both sides of the boat. At each gust of wind 
they incline like idle birds, lifting their long wing 
and showing their black belly. They run slant- 
wise, then come back ; one would say that they felt 
the better for beine in this ereat fresh-water har- 
bor ; they loiter in it and enjoy its peace after leav- 
ing the wrath and inclemency of the ocean. The 
banks, fringed with pale verdure, glide right and 
left, far away to the verge of heaven ; the river is 
broad like a sea ; at this distance you might think 
you saw two hedges ; the trees dimly lift their deli- 
cate shapes in a robe of bluish gauze ; here and 
there great pines raise their umbrellas on the 



THE COAST. Book I. 



vapory horizon, where all is confused and vanish- 
ing ; there is an inexpressible sweetness in these 
first hues of the timid da)', softened still by the fog 
which exhales from the deep river. As for the river 
itself, its waters stretch out joyous and splendid ; 
the rising sun pours upon its breast a long stream- 
let of orold ; the breeze covers it with scales ; its 
eddies stretch themselves, and tremble like an 
awaking serpent, and, when the billow heaves 
them, you seem to see the striped flanks, the taw- 
ney cuirass of a leviathan. 

Indeed, at such moments it seems that the water 
must live and feel ; it has a strange look, when it 
comes, transparent and sombre, to stretch itself 
upon a beach of pebbles ; it turns about them as if 
uneasy and irritated ; it beats them with its wave- 
lets ; it covers them, then retires, then comes back 
again with a sort of languid writhing and mysteri- 
ous lovingness ; its snaky eddies, its little crests 
suddenly beaten down or broken, its wave, sloping, 
shining, then all at once blackened, resembles the 
flashes of passion in an impatient mother, who 
hovers incessantly and anxiously about her chil- 
dren, and covers them, not knowing what she 
wants and what fears. Presently a cloud has 
covered the heavens, and the wind has risen. In 
a moment the river has assumed the aspect of a 
crafty and savage animal. I't hollowed itself, and 



Chap. I. 



BORDEA UX—RO YAN. 



showed its livid belly ; it came against the keel 
with convulsive starts, hugged it, and dashed 
against it, as if to try its force ; as far as one could 
see, its waves lifted themselves and crowded to- 
gether, like the muscles upon a chest ; over the 
flank of the waves passed flashes with sinister 
smiles ; the mast groaned, and the trees bent shiv- 
ering, like a nerveless crowd before the wrath of a 




fearful beast. Then all was hushed ; the sun has 
burst forth, the waves were smoothed, you now saw 
only a laughing expanse ; spun out over this -pol- 
ished back a thousand greenish tresses sported wan- 
tonly ; the light rested on it, like a diaphanous 
mantle ; it followed the supple movements and the 
twisting of those liquid arms ; it folded around 



6 THE COAST. Book I. 

them, behind them, its radiant, azure robe ; it took 
their caprices and their mobile colors ; the river 
meanwhile, slumbrous in its great, peaceful bed, 
was stretched out at the feet of the hills, which 
looked down upon it, like it immovable and eternal. 

II. 

The boat is made fast to a boom, under a pile 
of white houses : it is Royan. 

Here already are the sea and the dunes ; the 
right of the village is buried under a mass of sand ; 
there are crumbling hills, little dreary valleys, 
where you are lost as if in the desert ; no sound, 
no movement, no life ; scanty, leafless vegetation 
dots the moving soil, and its filaments fall like 
sickly hairs ; small shells, white and empty, cling 
to these in chaplets, and, wherever the foot is set, 
they crack with a sound like a cricket's chirp ; this 
place is the ossuary of some wretched maritime 
tribe. One tree alone can live here, the pine, a 
wild creature, inhabitant of the forests and sterile 
coasts ; there is a whole colony of them here ; 
they crowd together fraternally, and cover the sand 
with their brown lamels ; the monotonous breeze 
which sifts through them forever awakes their 
murmur ; thus they chant in a plaintive fashion, 
but with a far softer and more harmonious voice 



Chap. I. 



BORDEA UX—ROYAN. 



than the other trees ; this voice resembles the 
grating of the cicadse when in August they sing 
with all their heart among the stalks of the 
ripened wheat. 

At the left of the village, a footpath winds 
to the summit of a wasted bank, among billows 




of standinof orasses. The river is so broad that 
the other shore is not distinofuishable. The 
sea, its neighbor, imparts its refluence ; its long 
undulations come one after another against the 
coast, and pour their little cascades of foam upon 
the sand ; then the water retires, running down 
the slope until it meets a new wave coming up 
which covers it ; these billows are never wearied, 
and their come and go remind one of the regular 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



breathing of a slumbering child. For night has 
fallen, the tints of purple grow brown and fade 
away. The river goes to rest in the soft, vague 
shadow ; scarcely, at long intervals, a remnant 
glimmer is reflected from a slanting wave ; obscur- 
ity drowns everything in its vapory dust ; the 
drowsy eye vainly searches in this mist some visi- 
ble point, and distinguishes at last, like a dim star, 
the lighthouse of Cordouan. 



III. 




The next evening, a fresh sea-breeze has 
brought us to Bordeaux. The enormous city 
heaps its monumental houses along the river like 
bastions ; the red sky is embattled by their coping. 
They on one hand, the bridge on the other, pro- 
tect, with a double line, the port where the vessels 



Chap. I. 



BORDEA UX—RO YAN. 



are crowded together like a flock of gulls ; those 
graceful hulls, those tapering masts, those sails 
swollen or floating, weave the labyrinth of their 
movements and forms upon the magnificent purple 
of the sunset. The sun sinks down into the midst 
of the river and sets it all ablaze ; the black rig- 
ging, the round hulls, stand out against its confla- 
gration, and look like jewels of jet set in gold. 





CHAPTER II. 



LES LANDES.—BA YONNE. 



Around Bordeaux are smiling- hills, varied hori- 
zons, fresh valleys, a river peopled by incessant 
navigation, a succession of cities and villages 
harmoniously planted upon the declivities or in the 
plains, everywhere the richest verdure, the luxury 
of nature and civilization, the earth and man vying 
with each other to enrich and decorate the hap- 
piest valley of France. Below Bordeaux a flat soil, 
marshes, sand ; a land which goes on growing 
poorer, villages continually less frequent, ere long 
the desert. I like the desert as well. 

I^ine woods pass to the right and to the left, silent 
and wan. Each tree bears on its side the scar of 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BA YONNE. 15 

wounds where the woodmen have set flowing the 
resinous blood which chokes it ; the powerful liquor 
still ascends into its limbs with the sap, exhales by 
its slimy shoots and by its cleft skin ; a sharp aro- 
matic odor fills the air. 

Beyond, the monotonous plain of the ferns, 
bathed in light, stretches away as far as the eye 
can reach. Their green fans expand beneath the 
sun which colors, but does not cause them to fade. 
Upon the horizon a few scattered trees lift their 
slender columns. You see now and then the sil- 
houette of a herdsman on his stilts, inert and stand- 
ing like a sick heron. Wild horses are grazing 
half hid in the herbage. As the train passes, they 
abruptly lift their great startled eyes and stand 
motionless, uneasy at the noise that has troubled 
their solitude. Man does not fare well here, — he 
dies or degenerates ; but it is the country of ani- 
mals, and especially of plants. They abound in 
this desert, free, certain of living. Our pretty, cut- 
up valleys are but poor things alongside of these 
immense spaces, leagues upon leagues of marshy 
or dry vegetation, a level country, where nature, 
elsewhere troubled and tortured by men, still vege- 
tates as in primeval days with a calm equal to its 
grandeur. The sun needs these savannas in 
order properly to spread out its light ; from the 
rising exhalation, you feel that the whole plain is 



1 6 THE COAST. Book I. 

fermenting- under its force ; and the eyes filled by 
the limitless horizon divine the secret labor by 
which this ocean of rank verdure renews and nour- 
ishes itself 

Night without a moon has come on. The peace- 
ful stars shine like points of flame ; the whole air 
is filled with a blue and tender light, which seems 
to sleep in the network of vapor wherein it lies. 
The eye penetrates it without apprehending any- 
thing. At long intervals, in this twilight, a wood 
confusedly marks its spot, like a rock at the bottom 
of a lake ; everywhere around are vague depths, 
veiled and floating forms, indistinct and fantastic 
creatures melting into each other, fields that look 
like a billow)^ sea, clumps of trees that you might 
take for summer clouds, — the whole graceful chaos 
of commingled phantoms, of things of the night. 
The mind floats here as on a fleetinor stream, and 
nothincr seems to it real, in this dream, but the 
pools which reflect the stars and make on earth a 
second heaven. 








Chap. II. 



LES LANDES—BA YONNE. 



17 



II. 

Bayonne is a gay 
city, original and 
half Spanish. On 
all sides are men 
in velvet vest and 
small-clothes ; you 
hear the sharp, so- 
norous music of the 
tongue spoken be- 
yond the mount- 
ains. Squatty ar- 
cades border the 
principal streets ; 
there is need of 
shade under such 
a sun. ^^ _ _ 

A pretty episco- '' "' ^^^^ -~/«^ 
pal palace, in its modern elegance, makes the 
ugly cathedral still uglier. The poor, abortive 
monument piteously lifts its belfry, that for three 
centuries has remained but a stump. Booths are 
stuck in its hollows, after the manner of warts ; 
here and there they have laid on a rude plaster of 
stone. The old invalid is a sad spectacle along- 
side of the new houses and busy shops which 
crowd around its grimy flanks. 




i8 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



I was quite troubled at this decrepitude, and 
when once I had entered, I became still more 
melancholy. Darkness fell from the vault like a 
windine-sheet ; I could make out nothincr but 
worm-eaten pillars, smoke-darkened pictures, ex- 
panses of greenish wall. Two fresh toilettes that 
I met increased the contrast ; nothing could shock 
one more in this place than rose-colored ribbons. 
I was looking upon the spectre of the middle ages ; 
how opposed to it are the security and abundance 
of modern life ! Those sombre vaults, those slender 
columns, those rose windows, blood-d)-ecl, called 
up dreams and emotions which are now impossible 
for us. You should feel here what men felt six 
hundred years ago, when they swarmed forth from 
their hovels, from their unpaved, six-feet-wide 
streets, sinks of uncleanness, and reeking with 
fever and leprosy ; when their unclad bodies, 
undermined b)- famine, sent a thin blood to their 
brutish brains ; when wars, atrocious laws, and 
legends of sorcery- filled their dreams with vivid 
and melancholy images ; when over the bedizened 
draperies, over the riddles of painted glass, the 
rose windows, like a conflagration or an aureole, 
poured their transfigured rays. 

These are the remembrances ot fever and ecsta- 
sy : to get rid of them I have come out to the 
port ; it is a long alU^y of old trees at the side; ol 



Chap. II. 



LES LANDES—BA YONXE. 



19 



the Adoiir. Here all is gay and picturesque. 
Serious oxen, with lowered heads, drasf the beams 
that are being unloaded. Rope-makers, girt with 
a wisp of hemp, walk backward tightening their 
threads, and twining their ever- oto wine cable. 
The ships in file are made fast at the quay ; the 
slender cordage outlines its labyrinth against the 




sky, and the sailors hang in it hooked on like 
spiders in their web. Great casks, bales, pieces of 
wood are strewn pell-mell over the flags. 

You are pleased to feel that man is working and 
prosperous. And here nature too is as happy as 
man. The broad silver river unrolls itself under 
the radiance of the morning. Slender clouds throw 
out on the azure their band of mother-of-pearl. 
The sky is like an arch of lapis-lazuli. Its vault 
rests on the confines of the flood which advances 
waveless and effortless, under the glitter of its peace- 
ful undulations, between two ranges of declivity. 



THE COAST. Book I. 



away to a hill where pine-woods of a tender green 
slope down to meet it, as graceful as itself. The 
tide meanwhile rises, and the leaves on the oaks 
begin to shine, and to whisper under the feeble wind 
off the sea. 

III. 

It rains : the inn is insupportable. It is stifling 
under the arcades ; I am bored at the cafe, and 
am acquainted with nobody. The sole resource is 
to go to the library. That is closed. 

Fortunately the librarian takes pity on me, and 
opens for me. Better yet, he brings me all sorts of 
charters and old books ; he is both very learned and 
very amiable, explains everything to me, guides, in- 
forms and installs me. Here I am then in a corner, 
alone at a table, with the documents of a fine and 
thoroughly enjoyable history ; it is a pastoral of the 
middle ao-es. I have nothincj better to do than to 
tell it over for my own benefit. 

Pe de Puyane was a brave man and a skilful sailor, 
who in his day was Mayor of Bayonne and admiral ; 
but he was harsh with his men, like all who have 
managed vessels, and would any day rather fell a 
man than take off his cap. He had long waged war 
against the seamen of Normandy, and on one occa- 
sion he hung seventy of them to his yards, cheek 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BAYONNE. 21 

by jowl with some dogs. He hoisted on his gal- 
leys red flags signifying death and no quarter, and 
led to the battle of Ecluse the great Genoese 
ship Christophle, and managed his hands so well 
that no Frenchman escaped ; for they were all 
drowned or killed, and the two admirals, Quieret 
and Bahuchet, having surrendered themselves, Ba- 
huchet had a cord tightened around his neck, while 
Quieret had his throat cut. That was good manage- 
ment ; for the more one kills of his enemies, the less 
he has of them. For this reason, the people of 
Bayonne, on his return, entertained him with such 
a noise, such a clatter of horns, of cornets, of drums 
and all sorts of instruments, that it would have been 
impossible on that day to hear even the thunder of 
God. 

It happened that the Basques would no longer 
pay the tax upon cider, which was brewed at 
Bayonne for sale in their country. Pe de Puyane 
said that the merchants of the city should carry 
them no more, and that, if any one carried them 
any, he should have his hand cut off. Pierre Cambo, 
indeed, a poor man, having carted two hogsheads 
of it by night, was led out upon the market-place, 
before Notre Dame de Saint-Leon, which was then 
building, and had his hand amputated, and the 
veins afterwards stopped with red-hot irons ; after 
that he was driven in a tumbrel throughout the city. 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



which was an excellent example ; for the smaller folk 
should always do the bidding- of men in high 
position. 




?1 



Afterwards, Pe de Puyane having assembled the 
hundred peers in the town-house, showed them that 
the Basques being traitors, rebels toward the sei- 
gniory of P)ayonne, should no longer keep the fran- 
chises which .had been granted them ; that the sei- 
gniory ot i^)ayonne, possessing the sovereignt)' of 
the sea, might with justice impose a tax in all the 
places to which the sea rose, as if they were in its 
j)ort, and that accortHngU' the Hascjues should hence- 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BA YONNE. 23 

forth pay for passing to Villefranche, to the bridge 
of the Nive, the hmit of high tide. All cried out 
that that was but just, and Pe de Puyane declared 
the toll to the Basques ; but they all fell to laughing, 
saying they were not dogs of sailors like the mayor's 
subjects. Then having come in force, they beat the 
bridgemen, and left three of them for dead. 

Pe said nothing, for he was no great talker ; but 
he clinched his teeth, and looked so terribly around 
him, that none dared ask him what he would do, 
nor urge him on, nor indeed breathe a word. From 
the first Saturday in April to the middle of August, 
several men were beaten, as well Bayonnais as Bas- 
ques, but still war was not declared, and, when they 
talked of it to the mayor, he turned his back. 

The twenty-fourth day of August, many noble- 
men among the Basques, and several young people, 
good leapers and dancers, came to the castle of 
Miot for the festival of Saint Bartholomew. They 
feasted and showed off the whole day, and the young 
people who jumped the pole, with their red sashes 
and white breeches, appeared adroit and handsome. 
That night came a man who talked low to the 
mayor, and he, who ordinarily wore a grave and judi- 
cial air, suddenly had eyes as bright as those of a 
youth who sees the coming of his bride. He went 
down his staircase with four bounds, led out a band 
of old sailors who were come one by one, covertly. 



24 



THE COAST. 



Hook. 1. 



into ihe lower hall, and set out by dark night with 
several of the wardens, having closed the gates of 
the city for fear that some traitor, such as there are 
everywhere, should go before them. 

Having arrived at the castle they found the draw- 
bridge down and the postern open, so confident and 
unsuspecting were the Basques, and entered, cut- 
lasses drawn and pikes forward, into the great hall. 
There were killed seven young men who had barri- 
caded themselves behind tables, and would there 
make sport with their dirks ; but the good halberds, 
well pointed and sharp as they were, soon silenced 
them. The others, havino- closed the ofates from 
within, thought that they would have power to 
defend themselves or time to flee ; but the Bayonne 
marines, with their great axes, hewed down the 
planks, and split the first brains which happened to 
be near. The mayor, seeing that the Basques were 
tightly girt with their red sashes, went about saying 
(for he was usually facetious on days of battle) : 
" Lard these fine gallants for me ; forward the spit 
into their flesh justicoats ; " and in fact the spits went 
forward, so that all were perforated and opened, 
some through and through, so that you might have 
seen daylight through them, and that the hall half 
an hour after was full of pale and red bodies, several 
bent over IxMiclu^s, others in a pile in thc^ corners, 
some with th(;ir noses t>hi(Hl to the table like drunk- 



Chap. II. 



LES LANDES—BAYONNE. 



25 



ards, so that a Bayonnais, looking at them, said : 
" This is the veal market." Many, pricked from 
behind, had leaped through the windows, and were 
found next morning, with cleft head or broken spine, 
in the ditches. There remained only five men alive. 




noblemen, two named d'Urtubie, two de Saint-Pe, 
and one, de Lahet, whom the mayor had set aside 
as a precious commodity ; then, having sent some 
one to open the gates of Bayonne and command 
the people to come, he ordered them to set fire to 
the castle. It was a fine sight, for the castle burned 
from midnight until morning ; as each turret, wall or 
floor fell, the people, delighted, raised a great shout. 



26 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



There were volleys of sparks in the smoke and 
flames that stopped short, then began again 
suddenly, as at public rejoicings ; so that the 
warden, an honorable advocate, and a great lite- 
rary man, uttered this saying: "Fine festival for 
Bayonne folk ; for the Basques great barbecue of 
hogs." 

The castle being burned, the mayor said to the 
five noblemen that he wished to deal with them 
with all friendliness, and that they should them- 
selves be judges, if the tide came as far as the 
bridge ; then he had them fastened two by two to 
the arches until the tide should rise, assuring them 
that they were in a good place for seeing. The 
people were all on the bridge and along the banks, 
watching the swelling of the flood. Little by little 
it mounted to their breasts, then to their necks, and 
they threw back their heads so as to lift their 
mouths a little higher. The people laughed aloud, 
calling out to them that the time for drinking had 
come, as with the monks at matins, and that they 
would have enough for the rest of their days. 
Then the water entered the mouth and nose of the 
three who were lowest ; their throats o-urMed as 
wh(Mi bottles are filled, and the people applauded, 
sa)'ing that the drunkards swallowed too fast, and 
were going to strangle themselves out of pure 
grecdincjss. There remained only the two men, 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BAYONNE. 27 



d'Urtubie, bound to the principal arch, father and 
son, the son a Httle lower down. When the father 
saw his child choking, he stretched out his arms 
with such force that a cord broke : but that was all, 
and the hemp cut into his flesh without his being 
able to get any further. Those above, seeing that 
the youth's eyes were rolling, while the veins on his 
forehead were purple and swollen, and that the 
water bubbled around him with his hiccough, call- 
ed him baby, and asked why he had sucked so 
hard, and if nurse was not coming soon to put him 
to bed. At this the father cried out like a wolf, 
spat into the air at them, and called them butchers 
and cowards. That offended them so that they 
began throwing stones at him with such sure aim 
that his white head was soon reddened and his 
right eye gushed out ; it was small loss to him, for 
shortly after, the mounting wave shut up the other. 
When the water was gone down, the mayor com- 
manded that the five bodies, which hung with necks 
twisted and limp, should be left a testimony to the 
Basques that the water of Bayonne did come up to 
the bridge, and that the toll was justly due from 
them. He then returned home amidst the accla- 
mations of his people, who were delighted that they 
had so good a mayor, a sensible man, a great lover 
of justice, quick in wise enterprises, and who ren- 
dered to every man his due. 



28 THE COAST. Book I. 



As he was setting out, he had put sixty men at 
the entrance of the bridge, in the toll-tower, order- 
ino- them to look out well for themselves, and warn- 
ino- them that the Basques would not be slow in 
seekint»- to avenge themselves. But they flattered 
themselves that they still had at least one good 
nio-ht, and they busied their throats mightily with 
emptying flagons. Towards the middle of the 
night, there being no moon, came up about 
two hundred Basques ; for they are alert as 
the antelope,* and their runners had awakened 
that morning more than twenty villages in the 
Soule with the story of fire and drowning. The 
younger men, with several older heads, had set 
out forthwith by crooked circuitous paths, bare- 
foot, that they might make no noise, well armed 
with cutlasses, crampoons and several slender 
rope-ladders ; and, adroit as foxes, they had stolen 
to the base of the tower, to a place on the eastern 
side where it plunges straight down to the bed of 
the river, a real quagmire, so that here there was 
no guard, and the rolling of the water on the peb- 
bles might drown their slight noise, should they 
make any. They fixed their crampoons in the 
crannies of the stones, and, little by little, Jean 
Amacho, a man from Hehobie, a noted hunter of 

* Alertcs coinnic dcs izards — The i.uird^ or ysnrd, is tlie chamois-antelope 
of tlic T'vrcnc-es, often called a chamois. — Tkanslatok. 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BA YONNE. 



mountain beasts, climbed upon the battlements of 
the first wall, then, having steadied a pole against 
a window of the tower, he entered and hooked on 
two ladders ; the others mounted in their turn, until 
there were about fifty of them ; and new men were 
constantly coming, as many as the ladders would 
bear, noiselessly striding over the window-sill. 

They were in a little, low ante-room, and from 
thence, in the great hall of the first floor, six 
steps below them, they beheld the Bayonnais, of 
whom there were but three in this place, two 
asleep, and a third who had just waked up and- 
was rubbing his eyes, with his back turned to the 
small door of the ante-room. Jean Amacho gave a 
sign to the two men who had mounted immediately 
after him, and all jumped together with a single 
leap, and so nicely that, at the same moment, their 
three knives pierced the throats of the Bayonnais, 
who, bowing their limbs, sank without a cry to the 
. ground. The other Basques then came in, and 
waited at the verge of the great balustraded^stair- 
case leading into the lower hall where were the 
Bayonnais, some in a heap sleeping near the fire- 
place, others calling out and sharpset at feasting. 

One of these feeling that his hair was moist, lifted 
his head, saw some little red streams running from 
between the joists of the ceiling, and began to laugh, 
saying that the greedy fellows up there could no 



30 



THE COAST. Book 1. 



longer hold their cups, and were wasting good 
wine, which was very wrong of them. But finding 
that this wine was quite M^arm, he took some on his 
finger, then touched his tongue, and saw, by the 
insipid taste, that it was blood. He proclaimed this 
aloud, and the Bayonnais starting up grasped their 
pikes and ran for the staircase. Thereupon the 
Basques who had waited, not being sufficiently 
numerous, wished to recover the moment and rushed 
forth ; but the first comers felt the point of the pikes, 
and were lifted, just as bundles of hay are spitted 
on the forks to be thrown into a loft ; then the 
Bayonnais, holding themselves close together, and 
bristling in front with pikes, began to mount. 

Just then a valiant Basque, Antoine Chaho, and 
two others with him, dropped down along the wall, 
lizard fashion, making a cover of dead bodies ; and 
gliding between the great legs of the sailors of 
Bayonne, began work with their knives upon their 
hamstrings ; so that the Bayonnais, wedged in the 
stairway, and embarrassed by the men and the pikes 
that were fallincf crosswise, could neither eet on nor 
wield their spits with such nicety. At this moment, 
Jean Amacho and several young Basques, having 
espied their moment, leaped more than twenty feet 
clear into the middle of the hall, to a place where 
no halberds were ready, and began cutting throats 
with great promptness, then, thrown upon their 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BAYONNE. 31 

knees, fell to ripping open bellies ; they killed far 
more than they lost, because they had deft hands, 
while many were well padded with wool and wore 
leather shirts, and besides, the handles to their 
knives were wound with cord and did not slip. 
Moreover the Basques from above, who now num- 
bered more than a hundred, rolled down the stair- 
case like a torrent of goats ; new ones came up 
every moment, and in every corner of the hall, man 
to man, they began to run each other through. 

There died Jean Amacho in a sad enough fashion, 
and from no fault of his own ; for after he had cut 
the throat of a Bayonnais, — his ordinary mode of 
killing, and, indeed, the best of all, — he held his 
head too near, and the jet from the two great veins 
of the neck spirted into his face like the froth from a 
jar of perry as it is uncorked, and suddenly shut up 
both his eyes ; accordingly he was unable to avoid a 
Bayonnais who was at his left ; the fellow planted 
his dagger in Jean's back, who spit out blood, and 
died a minute after. 

But the Bayonnais, who were less numerous and 
less adroit, could make no stand, and at the end of 
half an hour there remained only a dozen of them, 
driven into a corner near a little cellar where were 
kept the jugs and bottles. In order the sooner to 
reduce these, the Basques gathered together the 
pikes, and began driving through this heap of men ; 



32 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



and the Bayonnais, as anybody will on feeling an 
iron point prick through his skin, stepped back and 
rolled together into the cellar. Just at this moment 
the torches went out, and the Basques, in order not 
to wound each other, dressed the whole armful of 
pikes, and harpooned at random forward into the 
cellar during more than a quarter of an hour, so as 
to make sure that no Bayonnais remained alive ; 
and thus, when all was become tranquil, and the 
torches were relighted, and they looked in, they 
saw that the cellar resembled a pork-butcher's 
chopping-block, the bodies being cut in twenty 
places, and separated from their heads, and the 
limbs being confusedly thrown together, till only 
salt was wantino" to make a saltino-tub of the 
place. 

But the younger of the Basques, although there 
was nothing more to kill, rolled their eyes all around 
the hall, orrinding- their teeth like hounds after the 
quarry ; they cried aloud continually, trembling in 
their limbs and clenching- their fin^fers after the han- 
dies of their daggers ; several, wounded and white- 
lipped, no longer felt their wounds or their loss of 
blood, remained crouching beside the man they had 
last killed, and then involuntarily leaped to their feet. 
One or two laughed with the fixity of madmen, and 
varied this with a hoarse roar ; and there was in 
the room such a mist of carnage that any one seeing 



Chap. II. LES LANDES—BA YONNE. 



2»Z 



them reeling or howling" thus, might have believed 
them drunk with wine. 

At sunrise, when they had loosed the five drown- 
ed men from the arches, they cast all the Bayonnais 
upon the current of the stream, and said that they 
might go down thus to their sea, and that this cart- 
ful of dead flesh was such toll as the Basques would 
pay. The congealed wounds were opened again 
by the coldness of the water ; it was a fine sight : 
by means of the blood that flowed, the river blush- 
ed red as a morning sky. 

After this the Basques and the men of Bayonne 
fought several years more, man against man, band 
against band ; and many brave men died on both 
sides. At the end, the two parties agreed to sub- 
mit to the arbitration of Bernard Ezi, Siix cT Albret. 
The lord of Albret said that the men of Bayonne, 
since they had made the first attack, were in fault ; 
he ordained that in future the Basques should pay 
no toll, that, on the contrary, the city of Bayonne 
should pay them fifteen hundred new golden 
crowns and should establish ten priestly preben- 
daryships, which should cost four thousand old 
crowns of the first coinage of France, of good gold 
and loyal weight, for the repose of the souls of the 
five gentlemen drowned without confession, which, 
perchance, were in purgatory, and had need of 
many masses in order to get out. But the Basques 



34 THE C0AS2\ Hook I. 



were unwilling- that Pe de Puyane, the mayor, 
should be included in this peace, either he or his 
sons, and they reserved the right to pursue them 
until they had taken vengeance on his flesh and his 
race. The mayor retired to Bordeaux, to the 
house of the Prince of Wales, of whom he was 
a great friend and good servant, and during two 
years did not go outside ot the city, excepting three 
or four times, well steeled, and attended by men-at- 
arms. But one day, when he had gone to see a 
vineyard he had bought, he withdrew a little from 
his troop to lift a great black vine-stock which was 
fallino- into the ditch ; a moment after, his men 
heard a little sharp cry, like that of a thrush caught 
in a snare ; when they had run up they saw Pe de 
Puyane dead, with a knife a fathom long which had 
entered by the armpit where he was unprotected 
by his cuirass. His elder son, Sebastian, who had 
fled to Toulouse, was killed by Augustin de Lahet, 
nephew of the man who was drowned ; the other, 
Hugues, survived and founded a family, since, hav- 
ing gone by sea to England, he remained there, 
and received from King Edward a knight's fief 
But neither he nor his children ever returned into 
Gascony ; they did wisely, for they would have 
found their grave-diggers there. 




CHAPTER III. 

BIARRITZ.—SAINT-JEAN-DE L UZ. 
I. 

Half a league off, at the turning of a road, 
may be seen a hill of a singular blue : it is 
the sea. Then you descend, by a winding route, 
to the village. 

A melanchol}'- village, with the taint of hotels, 
white and regular, cafes and signs, ranged by 
stages upon the arid coast ; for grass, patches of 
poor starveling turf; for trees, frail tamarisks which 
cling shivering to the earth ; for harbor, a beach 
and two empty creeks. The smaller conceals in 
its sandy recess two barks without masts, without 
sails, to all appearance abandoned. 

The waters consume the coast ; great pieces of 
earth and stone, hardened by their shock, fifty feet 
away from the shore, lift their brown and yellow 
spine, worn, raked, gnawed, jagged, scooped out 



36 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



by the wave, resembling a troop of stranded whales. 
The billow barks or bellows in their hollow bowels, 
in their deep yawning jaws ; then, after they have 
engulfed it, they vomit it forth in jets and foam 
against the lofty shining waves that forever return 




THE riERCED KULl. 



to the assault. Shells and polished pebbles are in- 
crusted upon their head. Here furzes have rooted 
their patient stems and the confusion of their thorns ; 
this hairy mantle is the only one capable of cling- 
ing to their flanks, and of standing out against the 
spray of the sea. 

To the left, a train of ploughed and emaciated 
rocks stretches out in a promontory as far as an 



Chap. III. BIARRITZ.— SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 37 



arcade of hardened beach, which the high tides 
have opened, and whence on three sides the eye 
looks down upon the ocean. Under the whisthng 
north wind it bristles with violet waves ; the pass- 
ing clouds marble it with still more sombre spots ; 
as far as the eye can reach is a sickly agitation 
of wan waves, chopping and disjointed, a sort of 
moving skin that trembles, wrenched by an inward 
fever ; occasionally a streak of foam crossing them 
marks a more violent shock. Here and there, be- 
tween the intervals of the clouds, the light cuts 
out a few sea-green fields upon the uniform plain ; 
their tawny lustre, their unhealthy color, add to the 
strangeness and to the limits of the horizon. 
These sinister changing lights, these tin-like reflec- 
tions upon a leaden swell, these white scoriae 
clinging to the rocks, this slimy aspect of the 
waves sueeest a oriaantic crucible in which the 
metal bubbles and gleams. 

But toward evening the air clears up and the 
wind falls. The Spanish coast is visible, and its 
chain of mountains softened by distance. The 
long dentation undulates away out of sight, and its 
misty pyramids at the last vanish in the west, be- 
tween the sky and the ocean. The sea smiles in its 
blue robe, fringed with silver, wrinkled by the last 
puff of the breeze ; it trembles still, but with plea- 
sure, and spreads out its lustrous, many-hued silk, 



38 THE COAST. Book I. 



with voluptuous caprices beneatli the sun that 
warms it. Meanwhile a few serene clouds poise 
above it their down of snow ; the transparency of 
the air bathes them in angelic glory, and their mo- 
tionless flight suggests the souls in Dante stayed 
in ecstasy at the entrance of paradise. 

It is night ; I have come up to a solitary espla- 
nade where is a cross, and whence is visible the 
sea and the coast. The coast, black, sprinkled with 
liehts, sinks and rises in indistinct hillocks. The 
sea mutters and rolls with hollow voice. Occa- 
sionall)-, in the midst of this threatening breath- 
ing comes a hoarse hiccough, as if the slumbering 
wild beast were waking up ; you cannot make it 
out, but from a nameless somethino- that is sombre 
and moving, you divine a monstrous, palpitating 
back; in its presence man is like a child before the 
lair of a leviathan. Who assures us that it will 
continue to tolerate us to-morrow ? On land we 
feel ourselves master ; there our hand finds every- 
where its traces ; it has transformed everything and 
jHit everything to its service ; the soil now-a-days 
is a kitchen-garden, the forests a grove, the rivers 
trenches, Nature is a nurse and a servant. But here 
still exists something ferocious and untamable. 
The ocean has preserved its liberty and its om- 
nipotence ; one of its ImHows would drown our hive ; 
over there in .America its bed lifts itsell ; it will 



Chap. 111. BIARRITZ.—SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 



39 



crush us without a thought ; it has done it and 
will do it again ; just now it slumbers, and we 
live clino^ino- to its flank without dreaminor that it 
sometimes wants to turn itself about. 




40 



THE COAST. 



Book. 1. 



II. 

There is a light-house to the north of the vil- 
lage, an esplanade of beach and prickly plants. 
Vegetation here is as rough as the ocean. Do 




THli VILLA EUGKNlli. 



not look to the left ; the pickets of soldiers, the 
huts of the bathers, the ennuyes, the children, the 
invalids, the drying linen, it is all as melancholy 
as a caserne and a hospital. But at the foot of 
the light-house the beautiful green waves hollow 
themselves and scale the rocks, scattering upon the 
wind their plume of foam ; the billows come up to 
the assault and mount one upon another, as agile 
and hardy as charging horsemen ; the caverns 
rumble ; the breeze whispers with a happy sound ; 
it enters the breast antl expands the muscles; you 
fill your lunLrs with the invioforatincf saltness of the 
sea. 



Chap. III. BIARRITZ.- -SAINT>JEAN-DE-LUZ. 41 

Farther on, ascending towards the north, are 
paths creeping along the cHffs. At the bottom of 
the last, solitude opens out ; everything human has 
disappeared ; neither houses, nor culture, nor ver- 
dure. It is here as in the first ages, at a time when 
man had not yet appeared, and when the water, 
the stone, and the sand were the sole inhabitants 
of the universe. The coast stretches into the 
vapor its long strip of polished sand ; the gilded 
beach undulates softly and opens its hollows to the 
ripples of the sea. Each ripple comes up foamy at 
first, then insensibly smooths itself, leaves behind 
it the flocks of its white fleece, and goes to sleep 
upon the shore it has kissed. Meanwhile another 
approaches, and beyond that again a new one, 
then a whole troop, striping the bluish water with 
embroidery of silver. They whisper low, and you 
scarcely hear them under the outcry of the distant 
billows ; nowhere is the beach so sweet, so smil- 
ing,— the land softens its embrace the better to 
receive and caress those darling creatures, which 
are, as it were, the litde children of the sea. 



III. 

It has rained all night ; but this morning a brisk 
wind has dried the earth ; and I have come along 
the coast to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. 



42 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



Everywhere the wasted cliffs drop perpendicu- 
larly down ; dreary hillocks, crumbling sand ; mis- 
erable o-rasses that strike their filaments into the 

o 

moving soil ; streamlets that vainly wind and are 
choked, pushed back by the sea ; tortured inlets, 
and naked strands. The ocean tears and depopu- 




lates its beach. Everything suffers from the 
neighborhood of the old tyrant. As you contem- 
plate here its aspect and its work, the antique 
superstitions seem true. It is a melancholy and 
hostile god. forever thundering, sinister, sudden in 
caprice, whom nothing appeases, nothing subdues, 
who chafes at being kept back from the land, em- 



Chap. III. BIARRITZ.— SAINT JEAN-DE-LUZ. 43 

braces it impatiently, feels it and shakes it, and 
to-morrow may recapture it or break it in pieces. 
Its violent waves start convulsively and twist them- 
selves, clashing Hke the heads of a great troop of 
wild horses ; a sort of grizzling mane streams on 
the edge of the black horizon ; the gulls scream ; 
they are seen darting down into the valley that is 
scooped out between two surges, then reap- 
pearing ; they turn and look strangely at you with 
their pale eyes. One would say that they are de- 
lighted with this tumult and are awaiting a prey. 

A little farther on. a poor hut hides itself in a 
bay. Three children ragged, with naked legs, 
were playing there in a stream that was over- 
flown. A great moth, clogged by the rain, had fall- 
en into a hole. They conducted the water to it 
with their feet, and dabbled in the cold mud ; the 
rain fell in showers on the poor creature, which 
vainly beat its wings ; they laughed boisterously, 
stumbling about and holding on to each other with 
their red hands. At that age and amidst such pri- 
vation nothing more was wanting to make them 

happy. 

The road ascends and descends, winding on 
high hills which denote the neighborhood of the 
Pyrenees. The sea reappears at each turn, and it 
is a singular spectacle, this suddenly lowered hori- 
zon, and that greenish triangle broadening toward 



44 



THE COAST. Book I. 



heaven. Two or three villages stretch along the 
route, their houses dropping down the heights like 
flights of stairs. From the white houses the women 
come out in black gown and veil to go to mass. 
The sombre color announces Spain. The men, in 
velvet vests, crowd to the public house and drink 
coffee in silence. Poor houses, a poor country ; un- 
der a shed I have seen them cooking, in the guise 
of bread, cakes of maize and barley. This destitu- 
tion is always touching. What is it that a day- 
laborer has gained by our thirty centuries of civili- 
zation ? Yet he has gained, and when we accuse 
ourselves, it is because we forget history. He no 
longer has the small-pox, or the leprosy ; he no 
longer dies of hunger, as in the sixteenth century, 
under Montluc ; he is no longer burned as a witch, 
as happened indeed under Henry IV. here in this 
very i)lace ; he can, if he is a soldier, learn to read, 
become; an officer ; he has coffee, sugar, linen. 
Our descendants will say that that is but little; 
our fathers would have said that it is a good deal. 

St. |ean-de-Luz is a little old city with narrow 
streets, to-day silent and decaying ; its mariners 
once fought the Normans for the; king of b^ngland; 
thirty or forty ships went out every year for the 
whale-fishery. Now-a-days the harbor is empty ; 
lliis terrible P)iscayan sea has thrice broken down 
ils dike. Against this roaring surge, heaped up all 



Chap. III. BIARRrrZ.—SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 45 



the way from America, no work of man holds out. 
The water was engulfed in the channel and came 
like a race-horse high as the quays, lashing the 
bridges, shaking its crests, grooving its wave ; 
then it thundered heavily into the basins, some- 
times with leaps so abrupt that it fell over the para- 
pets like a mill-dam, and flooded the lower part of 
the houses. One poor boat danced in a corner at 
the end of a rope ; no seamen, no rigging, no cord- 
age ; such is this celebrated harbor. They say, 
however, that half a league away, there are five or 
six barks in a creek. 




From the dike the tumult of the high tide was 
visible. A massive wall of black clouds girt the 
horizon ; the sun blazed through a crevice like a 
fire through the mouth of a furnace, and overflowed 



46 



THE COAST. 



Book 1. 



upon the billow its conflagration of ferruginous 
flames. The sea leaped like a maniac at the en- 
trance of the harbor, smitten by a band of invisible 
rocks, and joined with its white line the two horns 
of the coast. The waves came up fifteen feet high 
against the beach, then, undermined by the falling 
water, fell head foremost, desperate, with frightful 
howling ; they returned however to the assault, 
and mounted each minute higher, leaving on the 
beach their carpet of snowy foam, and fleeing with 
the slight shivering of a swarm of ants foraging 
among dry leaves. Finally one of them came wet- 
tinor the feet of the men who were watchincr from 
the top of the dike. Happily, it was the last ; the 
city is twenty feet below, and would be only a 
mass of ruins if some great tide were urged on by 
a hurricane. 




Chap. III. BIARRITZ.— SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 



47 



IV. 



A NOBLE hotel, with broad halls, and grand an- 
tique apartments, displays itself at the corner 
of the first basin facino- the sea. Anne of Austria 




lodged there in 1660, at the time of the marriage 
of Louis XIV. Above a chimney is still to be seen 
the portrait of a princess in the garb of a goddess. 
Were they not goddesses ? A tapestried bridge 
went from this house to the little church, sombre and 
splendid, traversed by balconies of black oak, and 



48 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



loaded with glittering reliquaries. The married 
pair passed through it between two hedges of Swiss 
and bedizened guards, the king all embroidered 
with gold, with a hat ornamented with diamonds ; 
the queen in a mantle of violet velvet sprinkled 
with fleur-de-lis, and, underneath, a habit of white 
brocade studded with precious stones, a crown up- 
on her head. There was nothing but processions, 
entries, pomps and parades. Who of us now-a- 




THK I'OI.ITKNKSS OV TO-DAV. 



days would wish to be a grand seigneur on con- 
dition of performing at this rate ? The weariness 



Chap. III. BIARRITZ.— SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 



49 



of rank would do away with the pleasures of rank ; 
one would lose all patience at being an embroidered 
manikin, always exposed to public view and on exhi- 
bition. Then, that was the whole of life. When 
M. de Crequi was going to carry to the infanta the 
presents of the king, " he had sixty persons in liv- 
ery in his suite, with a great number of noblemen 
and many friends." The eyes took delight in this 




^&^j 



THE POLITENESS OF OTHER DAYS. 



splendor. Pride was more akin to vanity, enjoy- 
ments were more on the surface. They needed to 
display their power in order to feel it. The courtly 

life had applied the mind to ceremonies. They 
4 



50 THE COAST. Book I. 



learned to dance, as now-a-days to reflect ; they 
passed whole years at the academy ; they studied 
with extreme seriousness and attention the art of 
bowing, of advancing the foot, of holding them- 
selves erect, of playing with the sword, of setting 
the cane properly ; the obligation of living in pub- 
lic constrained them to it ; it was the sign of their 
rank and education ; they proved in this way their 
alliances, their world, their place with the king, 
their title. Better yet, it was the poetry of the 
time. A fine manner of bowinor is a fine thino- • 
it recalled a thousand souvenirs of authority and 
of ease, just as in Greece an attitude recalled a 
thousand souvenirs of war and the gymnasium ; a 
slight inclination of the neck, a limb nobly extend- 
ed, a smile complaisant and calm, an ample trail- 
ing petticoat with majestic folds, filled the soul with 
lofty and courtly thoughts, and these great lords 
were the first to enjoy the spectacle they afforded. 
" I went to carry my offering," said Mile, de Mont- 
pensier, " and performed my Tevercnccs as did no 
one else of the company ; I found myself suitable 
enough for ceremonial days ; my person held its 
place there as my name in the world." These 
words explain the infinite attention that was given 
to questions of precedence and to ceremonies ; 
Mademoiselle is inexhaustible on this point ; slie 
talks like an upholsterer and a chamberlain ; she is 



Chap. III. BIARRITZ.~SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 51 



uneasy to know at what precise moment the 
Spanish grandees take off their hats ; if the king of 
Spain will kiss the queen-mother or will only em- 
brace her: these important interests trouble her. 
In fact, at that time they were important interests. 
Rank did not depend, as in a democracy, upon 
proved worth, on acquired glory, on power exer- 
cised or riches displayed, but upon visible preroga- 
tives transmitted by inheritance or granted by the 
king : so that they fought for a tabouret or a man- 
tle, as now-a-days for a place or for a million. 
Among other treacheries they plotted to lodge 
Mademoiselle's sisters with the queen. " The pro- 
position displeased me ; they would have eaten 
with her always, which I did not. That roused my 
pride. I was desperate at that moment." The war- 
fare was yet greater when it came to the marriage. 
" It occurred to somebody that it was necessary to 
carry an offering to the queen, so I could not bear 
her train, and it must be my sisters who would carry 
it with Mme. de Carignan. As soon as there was 
talk of bearing trains, the Duke de Roquelaure 
had offered to carry mine. They sought for dukes 
to carry those of my sisters, and, as not one was 
willing to do it, Mme. de Saugeon cried aloud that 
Madame would be in despair at this distinction." 
What happiness to walk first upon the tapestried 
bridge, the train held up by a duke, while, the 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



others go shamefully behind, with a train, but with- 
out a duke ! But suddenly others put in a claim. 
Mme. d'Uzes comes running up in a fright: it is 
question of an atrocious usurpation. "The princess 
palatine will have a train ; will you not put a stop 
to that ? " They get together ; they go to the king ; 
they represent to him the enormity of the deed : 
the king forbids this new train as usurping and 
criminal, and the princess, who weeps and storms, 
declares that she will not be present at the mar- 
riage if they deprive her of her appendix. Alas ! 
all human prosperity has its reverses ; Made- 
moiselle, so happy in the matter of trains, could not 
get to kiss the queen, and, at this interdict, she re- 
mained all day plunged in the deepest grief But, 
you see, the pursuits of rank had been, from in- 
fancy, her sole concern ; she had wanted to marr)- 
all the princes in the world, and ever in vain ; the 
person mattered little to her. First the cardinal in- 
fante, the reverse of an Amadis ; at the age of 
dreams, on the threshold of youth, among the vague 
visions and first enchantments of love, she chose 
this old churl in a ruff to enthrone herself with him, 
in a fine arm-chair, in the government of the Low 
Countries. Then Philip IV. of Spain ; the emperor 
Ferdinand, the arch-duke : neii^otiatino^ with them 
herself, exposing her envoy to the risk of hanging. 
Then the king of Hungary, the future king of Eng- 



Chap. III. BIARRJTZ.SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ. 



53 



land, Louis XIV,, Monsieur, the king of Portug-al. 
Who could count them ? At a pinch, she went to 
work in advance : the princess of Conde being ill, 
then in the family way, this romantic head fancied 
that the prince was going to become a widower, 




'JE VOUS LE RENDS." 



and wanted to retain him for a husband. No one 
took this hand that she had stretched to all Europe. 
In vain she fired cannon in the Fronde; she re- 
mained to the end an adventuress, a state puppet, 
a weathercock, occasionally exiled, twenty times a 
widow, but always before the wedding, carrying 
over the whole of France the weariness and imaei- 



54 



THE COAST. 



Book I. 



nations of her involuntary celibacy. At last Lau- 
zun appeared ; to marry her, and secretly at that, 
cost him the half of his wealth ; the king drew the 
dowry of his bastard from the misalliance of his 
cousin. It was an exemplary household : she 
scratched him : he beat her. — We laueh at these 
pretensions and bickerings, at these mischances 
and aristocratic quarrels ; our turn will come, rest 
assured of that ; our democracy too affords matter 
of laughter : our black coat is, like their embroider- 
ed coat, laced with the ridiculous ; we have envy, 
melancholy, the want of moderation and of polite- 
ness, the heroes of George Sand, of Victor Hugo 
and of Balzac. In fact, what does it matter ? 

'" Sifflez-moi librcuicnt ; jc voiis Ic rends, Dies 
fi-eresy So talked Voltaire, who gave to all the 
world at once the charter of equality and gayety. 




BOOK 11. 

THE VALLEY OF OSS A a 




CHAPTER 1. 

DAX.—ORTHEZ. 
I. 

1 SAW Dax in passing, and I recall only two rows 
of white walls of staring brightness, into which low 
doorways here and there sank their black arches 
with a strange relief An old and thoroughly for- 
biddino- cathedral bristled its bell-turrets and denta- 
tions in the midst of the pomp of nature and the 
joyousness of the light, as if the soil, burst open, 
had once put forth out of its lava a heap of crystal- 
lized sulphur. 

The postilion, a good fellow, takes up a poor 
woman on the way, and sets her beside him on his 
seat. What gay people ! They sing in patois,— 
there, they are singing now. The conductor joins 



58 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book IL 

in, then one of the people in the imperiale. They 
laugh with their whole heart ; their eyes sparkle. 
How far we are from the north ! In all these 
southern folk there is verve ; occasionally poverty, 
fatigue, anxiety crush it ; at the least opening, it 
ofushes forth like livinor water in full sunlio-ht. 

This poor woman amuses me. She is fifty years 
old, without shoes, garments in shreds, and not a sou 
in her pocket. She talks familiarly wuth a stout, well- 
dressed gentleman, who is behind her. No humility ; 
she believes herself the equal of the whole world. 
Gayety is like a spring rendering the soul elastic ; the 
people bend but rise again. An Englishman would 
be scandalized. Several of them have said to me that 
the French nation have no sentiment of respect. 
That is why we no longer have an aristocracy. 

The chain of the mountains undulates to the 
left, bluish and like a long stratum of clouds. The 
rich valley resembles a great basin full to overflow- 
ing of fruit-trees and maize. White clouds hover 
slowl)' in the depths of heaven, like a flock of tran- 
(|uil swans. The eye rests on the down of their 
sides, and turns with pleasure upon the roundness 
of their noble forms. They sail in a troop, carried 
on by the south wind, with an even flight, like a 
laniil)- of l)]issful gods, and from up above they seem 
to look with tenderness upon the beautiful earth 
which they protc!Ct and are going to nourish. 



Chap. I. 



DAX.—ORTHEZ. 



6r 



II. 

Orthez, in the fourteenth century, was a capital ; 
of this grandeur there remains but the wreck: 
ruined walls and the high tower of the castle hung 




with ivy. The counts of Foix had there a little state, 
almost independent, proudly planted between the 
realms of France, England and Spain. The people 
have gained in something, I know ; they no longer 
hate their neighbors, and they live at peace ; they 
receive from Paris inventions and news ; peace, 
trade and well-being are increased. They have, 
however, lost in something; instead of thirty active 
thinking capitals, there are thirty provincial cities. 



62 



THE VALLEY OF OSS AC/. 



Book II. 



torpid and docile. The women long- for a hat, the 
men go to smoke at a cafe ; that is their hfe ; they 
scrape together a few empty old ideas from imbecile 
newspapers. In old times they had thoughts on 
politics and courts of love. 



III. 

The good Froissart came here in the year 1388, 

havine ridden and chatted 
about arms all along the 
route with the chevalier 
Messire Espaing de Lyon ; 
he lodged in the inn of the 
Beautiful Hostess, which 
was then called the hotel 
of the Moon. The count 
Gaston Phoebus sent in all 
haste to seek him: "for 
he was the lord who of all 
the world the most gladly entertained the stranger 
in order to hear the news." Froissart passed 
twelve weeks in his hotel: "for they made him 
good cheer and fed well his horses, and in all 
things also ordered well." 

Froissart is a child, and sometimes an old child. 
At that time? thought was expanding, as in Greece 




Chap. I. 



DAX.— ORTHEZ. 



in the time of Herodotus. But, while we feel that 
in Greece it is going on to unfold itself to the very 
end, we discover here that an obstacle checks it : 
there is a knot in the tree ; the arrested sap can 
mount no higher. This knot is scholasticism. 

For, during three centuries already they had writ- 
ten in verse, and for two centuries in prose ; after 




this long culture, see what a historian is Froissart. 
One morning he mounts on horseback with several 
valets, under a beautiful sun, and gallops onward ; 



64 THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. 



a lord meets him whom he accosts : " Sir, what is 
this castle ? " The other tells him about the sie- 
ges, and what grand sword-thrusts were there ex- 
changed. " Holy Mary," cried Froissart, " but 
your words please me and do me a deal of good, 
while you tell them off to me ! And you shall not 
lose them, for all shall be set in remembrance and 
chronicled in the history which I am pursuing." 
Then he has explained to himself the kindred of 
the seigneur, his alliances, how his friends and 
enemies have lived and are dead, and the whole 
skein of the adventures interwoven during two 
centuries and in three countries. " And as soon as 
I had alighted at the hotels, on the road that we 
were following together, I wrote them down, w^ere 
it evening or morning, for the better memory of 
them in times to come ; for there is no such exact 
retentive as writing." All is found here, the pell- 
mell and the hundred shifts of the conversations, 
the reflections, the little accidents of the journey. 
An old squire recounts to him mountain legends, 
how Pierre de Beam, having once killed an enor- 
mous bear, could no longer sleep in peace, but 
thenceforward he awaked each night, ''making 
such a noise and such clatter that it seemed that 
all the devils in hell should have carried away 
everything and were inside with him." Froissart 
judges that this bear was perhaps a knight turned 



Chap. I. DAX.—ORTHEZ. 



into a beast for some misdeed ; cites in support the 
story of Actseon, an "accomplished and pretty 
knight who was changed into a stag." Thus goes 
his Hfe and thus his history is composed ; it resem- 
bles a tapestry of the period, brilliant and varied, full 
of hunting, of tournaments, battles and processions. 
He gives himself and his hearers the pleasure of 
imagining ceremonies and adventures ; no other 
idea, or rather no idea. Of criticism, general con- 
siderations, reasoning upon man or society, coun- 
sels or forecast, there is no trace ; it is a herald at 
arms who seeks to please curious eyes, the warlike 
spirit and the empty minds of robust knights, great 
eaters, lovers of thumps and pomps. Is it not 
strange, this barrenness of reason ! In Greece, at 
the end of an hundred years, Thucydides, Plato 
and Xenophon, philosophy and science had ap- 
peared. By way of climax, read the verses of 
Froissart, those ballads, roundelays and virelays 
that he recited of evenings to the Count de Foix, 
" who took great solace in hearing them indeed," 
the old rubbish of decadence, worn, affected alle- 
gories, the garrulousness of a broken-down pedant 
who amuses himself in composing wearisome turns 
of address. And the rest are all alike. Charles 
d' Orleans has a sort of faded grace and nothing- 
more, Christine de Pisan but an official solemnity. 

Such feeble spirits want the force to give birth to 

5 



66 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. 



Book II. 



general ideas ; they are bowed down under the 
weight of those which have been hooked on to 
them. 

The cause is not tar to seek ; think of that stout 
cornific * doctor with leaden eyes, a confrere of 
Froissart, if you like, but how different! He holds 







in his hand his manual of canon-law, Peter the 
Lombard, a treatise on the syllogism. For ten 
hours a day he disputes in Baralipton on the Jiic- 
cd'ily. As soon as he became hoarse, he dipped 

'' Coriiifuitii. a name given l)y Jean of Sarishcrt; to those who disfigured 
dialectics by liieir extravagant, roniiis arguinenls.— 'ruANsi.A'niR. 



Chap. 1. DAX.—ORTHEZ. 67 



his nose again into his yellow folio ; his syllogisms 
and quiddities ended by making him stupid ; he 
knew nothing about things or dared not consider 
them ; he only wielded words, shook formulas to- 
gether, bruised his own head, lost all common 
sense, and reasoned like a machine for Latin verses.* 
What a master for the sons of noblemen, and for 
keen poetic minds, and what an education was this 
labyrinth of dry logic and extravagant scholasti- 
cism. Tired, disgusted, irritated, stupefied, they 
forgot the ugly dream as soon as possible, ran in 
the open air, and thought only of the chase, of war 
and the ladies ; they were not so foolish as to turn 
their eyes a second time towards their crabbed 
litany ; if they did come back to it, that was out of 
yanity ; they wanted to set some Latin fable in 
their songs, or some learned abstraction, without 
comprehending a word of it, donning it for fashion's 
sake, as the ermine of learning. With us of to- 
day, general ideas spring up in every mind, — living 
and flourishing ones ; among the laity of that time 
their root was cut off, and among the clergy there 
remained of them but a fagot of dead wood. 
And so mankind was only the better fitted for 
the life of the body and more capable of violent 
passions ; with regard to this the style of Froissart, 



* See the discourse of Jean Petit on the assassination of the Duke of 
Orleans. 



68 



THE VALLE Y OF OSSA U. 



Book II. 



artless as it is, deceives us. We think we are 
listening to the pretty garrulousness of a child at 
play ; beneath this prattle we must distinguish the 
rude voice of the combatants, bear-hunters and 
hunters of men too, and the broad, coarse hos- 
pitality of feudal manners. At midnight the Count 



iil,4'-|fc 







of Foix came to supper in the great hall. " Before 
him went twelve lighted torches, borne by twelve 
valets : and the same twelve torches were held be- 
fore his table and gave much light unto the hall, 
which was full of knights and squires ; and always 
there were plenty of tables laid out for any person 
who chose to sup." It must have been an aston- 



Chap. I. DAX.—ORTHEZ. 69 

ishing sight, to see those furrowed faces and pow- 
erful frames, with their furred robes and their 
justicoats streaked under the wavering flashes of 
the torches. One Christmas day, going into his 
gallery, he saw that there was but a small fire, 
and spoke of it aloud. Thereupon a knight, 
Ernauton d'Espagne, having looked out of the 
v/indow, saw in the court a number of asses with 
" billets of wood for the use of the house. He 
seized the largest of these asses with his load, 
threw him over his shoulders and carried him up 
stairs " (there were twenty-four steps), '' pushing 
through the crowd of knights and squires who 
were round the chimney, and flung ass and load, 
with his feet upward, on the dogs of the hearth, 
to the delight of the count, and the astonishment 
of all." Here are the laughter and the amusement 
of barbaric giants. They wanted noise, and songs 
proportioned to it. Froissart tells of a banquet 
when bishops, counts, abbes, knights, nearly one 
hundred in number, were seated at table. " There 
were very many minstrels in the hall, as well those 
belonging to the count as to the strangers, who, at 
their leisure, played away their minstrelsy. Those 
of the duke de Touraine played so loud and so 
well that the count clothed them ' with cloth of 
gold trimmed with ermine.' " 

" This count," says Froissart, " reigned pru- 



70 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



dently ; in all things he was so perfect that one 
could not praise him too much. No great con- 
temporary prince could compare with him in sense, 
honor and wisdom." In that case the great princes 
of the day were not worth much. With justice 
and humanity, the good Froissart scarcely troubles 
himself; he finds murder perfectly natural ; indeed, 
it was the custom ; they were no more astonished 
at it, than at a snap of the jaws in a wolf Man 
then resembled a beast of prey, and when a beast 
of prey has eaten up a sheep nobody is scandal- 
ized thereby. This excellent Count de Foix was 
an assassin, not once only, but ten times. For 
example, he coveted the castle of Lourdes, and so 
sent for the captain, Pierre Ernault, who had re- 
ceived it in trust for the prince of Wales. Pierre 
Ernault "became very thoughtful and doubtful 
whether to go or not." At last he went, and the 
count demanded from him the castle of Lourdes. 
The knight thought awhile what answer to make. 
However, having well considered, he said : " M)- 
lord, in truth I owe you faith and homage, for I am 
a poor knight of your blood and countr)- ; but as 
for the castle of Lourdes, I will never surrender it 
to you. You have sent for me, and )^ou may 
therefore do with me as you please. I liold the 
castle of Lourdes from the king of hjigland, who 
has placed me there ; and to no other [)erson but 



Chap. I. 



DAX.— ORTHEZ. 



n 



to him will I ever surrender it." The Count de 
Foix, on hearing this answer, was exceedingly 
wroth, and said, as he drew his dagger, " Ho, ho, 
dost thou then say so ? By this head, thou hast 
not said it for nothing." And, as he uttered these 
words, he struck him foully with the dagger, so 
that he wounded him severely in five places, and 
none of the barons or knights dared to interfere. 




The knight replied, " Ha, ha, my lord, this is not 
gentle treatment ; you sent for me here, and are 
murdering me." Having received these five 
strokes from the dagger, the count ordered him 
to be cast into the dungeon, which was done ; and 
there he died, for he was ill-cured of his wounds." 
This dominance of sudden passion, this violence 



72 , THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book 11. 



of first impulse, this flesh and blood emotion, and 
abrupt appeal to physical force, are cropping out 
continually in the people. At the slightest insult 
their eyes kindle and blows fall like hail. As we 




were leaving Dax, a diligence passed ours, grazing 
one of the horses. The conductor leaped down 
from his seat, a stake in his hand, and was going 
to fell his confrere. Those lords lived and felt 
something like our conductors, and the Count de 
Foix was such an one. 

I beg pardon of the conductors ; I wrong them 
grievously. The count, not having the fear of the 
police before his eyes, came at once not to fisti- 
cuffs, but to stabs. His son Gaston, while on a 
visit to the king of Navarre, received a bhick pow- 
der which, according to the king, nuist forever rec- 



Chap. I. DAX.—ORTHEZ. 73 



oncile the count and his wife ; the youth took the 
powder in a httle bag and concealed it in his breast ; 
one day his bastard brother, Yvain, saw the bag 
while playing with him, wanted to have it, and 
afterw^ard denounced him to the count. At this 
the count " began to have suspicions, for he was 
full of fancies," and remained so until dinner-time, 
very thoughtful, haunted and harassed by sombre 
imaginings. Those stormy brains, filled by war- 
fare and danger with dismal images, hastened to 
tumult and tempest. The youth came, and began 
to serve the dishes, tasting the meats, as was usual 
when the notion of poison was not far from any 
mind. The count cast his eyes upon him and saw 
the strings of the bag ; the sight fired his veins 
and made his blood boil ; he seized the youth, 
undid his pourpoint, cut the strings of the bag, 
and strewed some of the powder over a slice of 
bread, while the poor youth turned pale with fear, 
and began to tremble exceedingly. Then he 
called one of his dogs to him, and gave it him to 
eat. " The instant the dog had eaten a morsel 
his eyes rolled round in his head, and he died." 

The count said nothing, but rose suddenly, and 
seizing his knife, threw himself upon his son. But 
the knights rushed in between them : " For God's 
sake, my lord, do not be too hasty, but make fur- 
ther inquiries before you do any ill to your son." 



74 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



The count heaped malediction and insult upon the 
youth, then suddenly leaped over the table, knife 
in hand, and fell upon him like a wild beast. But 
the knights and the squires fell upon their knees 
before him weeping, and saying: "Ah, ah! my 
lord, for Heaven's sake do not kill Gaston ; you 







have no other child." With great difficulty he 
restrained himself, doubtless thinking that it was 
prudent to see if no one else had a part in the 
matter, and put the youth into the tower at Orthez. 
He investigated then, but in a singular fashion, 
as if he were a famished wolf, wedded to a single 
idea, bruising himself against it mechanically and 
brutally, through murder and outcry, killing blindly 
and without reflecting that his killing is of no use 
to him. He had manv of those who served liis 



Chap. I. DAX.—ORTHEZ. 75 



son arrested, and "put to death not less than fif- 
teen after they had suffered the torture ; and the 
reason he gave was, that it was impossible but 
they must have been acquainted with the secrets 
of his son, and they ought to have informed him 
by saying, ' My lord, Gaston wears constantly on 
his breast a bag of such and such a form.' This 
they did not do and suffered a terrible death for it ; 
which was a pity, for there were not in all Gascony 
such handsome or well-appointed squires." 

When this search had proved useless he fell 
back upon his son ; he sent for the nobles, the pre- 
lates and all the principal persons of his country, 
related the affair to them, and told them that it was 
his intention to put the youth to death. But they 
would not agree to this, and said that the country 
had need of an heir for its better preservation and 
defence ; " and would not quit Orthez until the 
count had assured them that Gaston should not be 
put to death, so great was their affection for him." 

Still the youth remained in the tower of Orthez, 
" where was little light," always lying alone, un- 
willing to eat, " cursing the hour that ever he was 
born or begotten, that he should come to such an 
end." On the tenth day the jailer saw all the 
meats that had been served in a corner, and went 
and told it to the count, llie count was again 
enraged, like a beast of prey who encounters a 



76 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



remnant of resistance after it has once been sati- 
ated ; " without saying- a word," he came to the 
prison, holdinor l)y the point a small knife with 

which he was cleaning 
his nails. Then, striking- 
his fist upon his son's 
throat, he pushed him 
rudely as he said: "Ha, 
traitor, why dost thou 
not eat ? " and went away 
without saying more. 
His knife had touched an 
artery; the youth, fright- 
ened and wan, turned 
with(nit a word to the 
other side of the bed, 
shed his blood and died. 

1 he count was grieved 
beyond measure when he 
heard of this, for these 
violent natures felt only 
with excess and by contrasts ; ht; had himself sha- 
ven and clothed in black. " The body of the \'outh 
was l)orne, with tears and lamentations, to the 
church of the Augustine Friars at Orthez, where it 
was buried."* Hut such murders left an ill-healed 




* The passai^es from Froissart are from the version of Thomas Jolinos. 
New N'orU : J. Wincliester, New World Press. 



Chap. I. 



DAX.— ORTHEZ. 



77 



wound in the heart ; the dull pain remained, and 
from time to time some dark shadow crossed the 




tumult of the banquets. This is why the count 
never again felt such perfect joy as before. 

It was a sad time; there is hardly another in 
which one would have lived so unwillingly. Poetry 
was imbecile, chivalry was falling into brigandage, 
religion suffered degradation, the State, disjointed, 
was crumbling away ; the nation, ground down by 
king, by nobles and by Englishmen, struggled for 



78 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



a hundred years in a slough, between the dying 
middle-age and the modern era which was not yet 
opened. And yet a man like Ernauton must have 
experienced a unique and splendid joy when, plant- 
ed like a Hercules upon his two feet, feeling his 
shirt of mail upon his breast, he pierced through a 
hedge of pikes, and wielded his great sword in the 
sunlight. 




Chap. I. 



DAX.—ORTHEZ. 



79 




v3us?a^^PS§s;^*^^Ss^- 



ing nothing about 
visiting here 



Nothing can be pleas- 
anter than to journey alone 
in an unknown country, 
without a definite end, 
without recent cares ; all 
little thoughts are blotted 
out. Do I know whether 
this field belongs to Peter 
or to Paul ; whether the 
engineer is at war with 

o 

the prefect, or if there is 
any dispute over a pro- 
jected canal or road ? I 
am happy indeed in know- 
all that ; happier still in 
findino- fresh 



for the first time, 



8o THE VALLEY OE OSSAlf. Booic II. 



sensations, and not being troubled by com- 
parisons and souvenirs. I can consider things 
throucfb general views, no lon^fer retrardincr the 
soil as made the most of by mankind, can forget 
the useful, think only of the beautiful, and feel the 
movement of forms and the expression of colors. 

The very road seems beautiful to me. What an 
air of resignation in those old elms. They bud 
and spread forth in branches, from head to foot, 
they have such a desire for life, even under this 
dust. Then come lustrous plane trees, tossing 
their beautiful and regular leaves. White bind- 
weed, blue campanulas, hang at the edge of the 
ditches. Is it not strange that these pretty crea- 
tures remain so solitary, that they should be fated 
to die to-morrow, that they should scarcely have 
looked upon us an instant ; that their beauty 
should have flourished only for its two seconds of 
admiration ? They too have their world, this 
people of high grasses bending over on them- 
selves ; these lizards which wave the thicket of the 
herbs ; these gilded wasps that hum in their chal- 
ices. This world here is well worth ours, and I 
find them happy in opening thus, then in closing 
their pale eyes to the peaceful whisper of the 
wind. 

The road, as far as the eye can reach, curves 
and lifts anew its white girdle around the hills; this 



Chap. I. DAX.—ORTHEZ. 83 



sinuous movement Is of infinite sweetness ; the 
long riband tightens to their figure their veil of 
fair harvests or their robe of green meadows. 
These slopes and roundnesses are as expressive as 
human forms ; but how much more varied, how 
much stranger and richer in attitudes ? Those 
there on the horizon, almost hid behind a troop of 
others, smile dimly in their timidness, under their 
crown of vapory gauze ; they form a round on the 
brink of heaven, a fleeting round that the least dis- 
turbance of the air would put out of sight, and 
which yet regards with tenderness the fretted crea- 
tures lost in its bosom. Others, their neighbors, 
rudely dint the soil with their haunches and their 
brown slopes ; the human structure here half 
peeps forth, then disappears under the mineral bar- 
barism ; here are the children of another age, ever 
powerful, severe still, unknown and antique races, 
whose mysterious history the mind searches with- 
out willing it. Tawny moors filled with herds 
mount upon their flanks to the summits ; splendid 
meadows sparkle upon their back. Some among 
these plunge abruptly away down into depths where 
they disgorge the streams that they accumulate, 
and where is gathered all the heat of the burning 
vault which shines above under the most generous 
sun. It, meanwhile, embraces and broods over the 
country; from woods, plains, hills, the great soul of 



84 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



vegetation starts forth mounting to meet its 
rays. 

Here your neighbor, who is engaged in a warm 
dispute, pulls your sleeve, crying: "The gigot at 
Orthez doesn't give cramps in the stomach, does it, 



sir r 



> " 



You start ; then in another moment you turn 
your nose toward the window. But the sensation 
has disappeared : the mutton of Dax has blotted 
out everything. The meadows are so many kilo- 
grammes of unmown hay, the trees are so many 
feet of timber, and the herds are only walking 
beefsteaks. 





AVENUE OF THE CHATEAU AT PAU. 



CHAPTER II. 

PAU. 
I. 

Pau is a pretty city, neat, of gay appearance ; but 
the highway is paved with httle round stones, the 
side-walks with small sharp pebbles : so the horses 
walk on the heads of nails and foot-passengers on 
the points of them. From Bordeaux to Toulouse 
such is the usage, such the pavement. At the end 
of five minutes, your feet tell you in the most intel- 
ligible manner that you are two hundred leagues 
away from Paris. 

You meet wagons loaded with wood, of rustic 



86 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



simplicity, the invention of which goes back to the 
time of Vercingetorix, but the only thing capable of 
climbing and descending the stony escarpments of 
the mountains. They are composed of the trunk 
of a tree placed across the axles and sustaining two 
oblique hurdles ; they are drawn by two great 
whitish oxen, decked with a piece of hanging cloth, 
a net of thread upon the head and crowned with 
ferns, all to shield them from the gray flies. This 
suo-crests food for thought ; for the skin of man is 
far more tender than that of the ox, and the gray 
flies have sworn no peace with our kind. Before 
the oxen ordinarily marches a peasant, of a distrust- 
ful and cunning air, armed with a long switch, and 
dressed in white woollen vest and brown breeches ; 
behind the wagon comes a little bare- footed boy, 
very wide awake and very ragged, whose old vel- 
vet cap falls like the head of a wrinkled mushroom, 
and who stops struck with admiration at the mag- 
nificent aspect of the diligence. 

Those are the true countrymen of Henry IV. 
As to the pretty ladies in gauzy hats, whose swell- 
ing and rustling robes graze the horns of the 
motionless oxen as they pass, you must not look at 
them ; they would carry your imagination back to 
the Boulevard de Gand, and you would have gone 
two hundred leagues only to remain in the same 
place. I am here on purpose to visit the sixteenth 



Chap. II. 



PAU. 




century ; one makes a journey for the sake of chang- 
ing, not place, but ideas. Point out to a Parisian 
the gate by which Henry IV. entered Paris; he will 
have great difficulty in calling up the 
armor, the halberts and the whole vic- 
torious and tumultuous procession that 
I'Etoile describes : it is because he 
passed by there to-day on such and 
such business, that yesterday he met 
there a friend, while last year he looked 
upon this gate in the midst of a public 
festival. All these thoughts hurry 
l^v^M^j^ along with the force of habit, repel- 
tl '^"m ^^^^8 ^^*^ stifling the historic spectacle 
which was oroino- to lift itself into full 
lio^ht and unroll itself before the mind. 
Set down the same man in Pau : there 
he knows neither hotels, nor people, 
nor shops ; his imagination, out of its 
element, may run at random ; no knovv^n 
object will trip him up and make him 
fall into the cares of interest, the passion of to-day; 
he enters into the past as a matter of course, and 
walks there as if at home, at his ease. It was eight 
o'clock in the morning ; not a visitor at the castle, 
no one in the courts nor on the terrace ; I should 
not have been too much astonished at meeting the 
Bearnais, " that lusty gallant, that very devil," who 




THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



was sharp enough to get for liimsclf the name of 
"the good king." 

His chateau is very irregular ; it is only when seen 
from the valley that any grace and harmony can 
be found in it. Above two rows of pointed roofs 
and old houses, it stands out alone against the sky 
and gazes upon the valley in the distance ; two bell- 
turrets project from the front toward the west ; the 
oblong body follows, and two massive brick towers 
close the line with their esplanades and battlements. 
It is connected with the city by a narrow old bridge, 
by a broad modern one with the park, and the foot 
of its terrace is bathed by a dark but lovely stream. 
Near at hand, this arrangement disappears ; a fifth 
tower upon the north side deranges the symmetry. 




The great egg-shaped court is a mosaic of incon- 



gruous masonry ; above the porch, a wall of peb- 
bles from the Gave, and of red bricks crossed like a 
tapestry design ; opposite, fixed to the wall, a row 
of medallions in stone ; upon the sides, doors of 
every form and age ; dormer windows, windows 
square, pointed, embattled, with stone mullions 
garlanded with elaborate reliefs. This masquerade 
of styles troubles the mind, yet not unpleasantly ; it 
is unpretending and artless ; each century has 
built according to its own fancy, without concerning 
itself about its neighbor. 

On the first floor is shown a s^reat tortoise-shell, 
which was the cradle of Henry IV. Carved chests, 
dressing-tables, tapestries, clocks of that day, the 
bed and arm-chair of Jeanne d'Albret, a complete 
set of furniture in the taste of the Renaissance 
striking and sombre, painfully labored yet magnifi- 
cent in style, carrying the mind at once back 
toward that age of force and effort, of boldness in 
invention, of unbridled pleasures and terrible toil, 
of sensuality and of heroism. Jeanne d'Albret, 
mother of Henry IV., crossed France in order that 
she might, according to her promise, be confined in 
this castle. "A princess," says d'Aubigne, "having 
nothinof of the woman about her but the sex, a soul 
entirely given to manly things, a mind mighty in 
great affairs, a heart unconquerable by adversity." 
She sang an old Bearnese song when she brought 



92 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



him into the world. They say that the aged grand- 
father rubbed the Hps of the new-born child with a 




JHANNE d'aLURET. 

clove of garlic, poured into his mouth a few drops 
of Juran9on wine, and carried him away in his 
dressinor- crown. The child was born in the chamber 
which opens into the tower of Mazeres, on the 
south-west corner. " His grandfather took him 
away from his father and mother, and would have 
this child brought up at his door, reproaching his 
daughter and his son-in-law with haviuQ^ lost seve- 
ral of their children through French luxuries. And, 
indeed, he l3rought him up in the Bearnese man- 
ner, that is, bareheaded and l)arefoot, often with no 



Chap. II. PAU. 93 

more nicety than is shown in the bringing up of 
children among the peasantry. This odd resolu- 
tion was successful, and formed a body in which 
heat and cold, unmeasured toil and all sorts of 
troubles were unable to produce any change, thus 
apportioning his nourishment to his condition, as 
though God wished at that time to prepare a sure 
remedy and a firm heart of steel against the iron 
knots of our dire calamities," 

His mother, a warm and severe Calvinist, when 
he was fifteen years old, led him through the 
Catholic army to la Rochelle, and gave him to her 
followers as their general. At sixteen years old, 
at the combat of Arnay-le-Duc, he led the first 
charge of cavalry. What an education and what 
men 1 Their descendants were just now passing 
in the streets, going to school to compose Latin 
verses and recite the pastorals of Massillon. 



II. 



Those old wars are the most poetic in French 
history ; they were made for pleasure rather than 
interest. It was a chase in which adventures, 
dangers, emotions were found, in which men lived 
in the sunlight, on horseback, amidst flashes of fire, 
and where the body, as well as the soul, had its 



94 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



enjoyment and its exercise. Henry carries it on 
as briskly as a dance, with a Gascon's fire and a 
soldier's ardor, with abrupt sallies, and pursuing 
his point against the enemy as with the ladies. 
This is no spectacle of great masses of well-disci- 
plined men, coming heavily into collision and falling 
by thousands on the held, according to the rules of 
good tactics. The king leaves Pau or Nerac with 
a little troop, picks up the neighboring garrisons 
on his way, scales a fortress, intercepts a body of 




arquebusiers as they pass, extricates himself pistol 
in hand from the midst of a hostile troop, and 
returns to the feet of Mile, de Tignonville. They 
arrange their plan from day to day ; nothing is done 
unless unexpectedly and by chance. Enterprises 
are strokes of fortune. Here is one which Sully 
had recounted l)y his secretary; I like to listen to 
old words among old monunients, and to feel the 
mutual litn(^ss of objc^cts and of stvle : 



"The king of Navarre formed the design of 
seizing on the city of Eause, which, by good right, 
was his, and where he had chance of fine fortune ; 
for deeming that the inhabitants, who had not been 
wilHng to receive a garrison, should have respect 
for his person, who was their lord, he determined 
to march all day long in order to enter in with 
few people, so as to create no alarm, and, indeed, 
having taken only fifteen or sixteen of you, gentle- 
men, who placed yourselves nearest to him, among 
whom were you, with simple cuirasses under your 
hunting tunics, two swords and two pistols, he sur- 
prised the gate of the city and entered in before 
they of the guard were able to take up arms. 
But one of these gave the alarm to him who was 
sentinel at the portal, and he cut the cord in the 
slide of the portcullis, so that it fell immediately 
almost on the croup of your horse and that of your 
cousin, M. de Bethune the elder, and hindered the 
troop which was coming up on the gallop from 
entering, so that the king and you fifteen or six- 
teen alone remained shut up in this city, where all 
the people, being armed, fell upon you in divers 
troops and at divers times, while the tocsin rang 
furiously, and a cry of 'Arm, arm!'' and 'Kill, 
Kill ! ' resounded on all sides, — seeing which, the 
king of Navarre, from the first troop which came 
up, some fifty strong, in part well, in part ill armed, 



96 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

he, I say, marching", pistol in hand, straight at 
them, called out to you : ' Come now, my friends, 
my comrades ; it is here that you must show 
courage and resolution, for thereon depends our 
safety ; let each one then follow me and do as I do, 
and not fire until the pistol touches.' At the same 
time, hearing three or four cry out: 'Fire at that 
scarlet tunic, at that white plume, for it is the king 
of Navarre,' he charged on them so impetuously 
that, without firing more than five or six times, 
they took fright and withdrew in several troops. 
Others in like manner came against you three or 
four times ; but as soon as they saw that they were 
broken, they fired a few times and turned away until, 
having rallied nearly two hundred together, they 
forced you to gain a doorway, and two of you went 
up to give a signal to the rest of the troop that the 
king was there, and that the gate must be burst 
open, as the draw-bridge had not been raised. 
Whereupon each one began working, and then 
several among that populace who loved the king, 
and others who feared to offend him, began raising 
a tumult in his favor ; finally, after a few arquebu- 
sades and pistol-shots from both sides, there arose 
such dissension among them, some crying, ' We 
must yield ; ' others, ' We must defend ourselves ; ' 
that the irresolution afforded means and time for 
opening the gates, and for all the troops to present 



Chap. II. PAU. 99 

themselves, at the head of whom the king placed 
himself, and saw most of the peoples fleeing- and 
the consuls with their chaperons crying : ' Sire, we 
are your subjects and your peculiar servants. 
Alas ! allow not the sacking of this city, which is 
yours, on account of the madness of a few worth- 
less fellows, who should be driven out.' He 
placed himself, I said, at the head to prevent pil- 
lao-e: thus there was committed neither violence, 
nor disorder, nor any other punishment, except 
that four, who had fired at the white plume, were 
hung, to the joy of all the other inhabitants, who 
thought not that they should be quiet on such 
o-ood terms." 

o 

At Cahors he burst in the two gates with 
petard and axe, and fought five days and five 
nights in the city, carrying house after house. 
Are not these chivalric adventures and poetry in 
action ? " So, so, cavaliers," cried the Catholics at 
Marmande ; "a pistol-shot for love of the mis- 
tress ; for your court is too full of lovely ladies 
to know any lack of them." Henry escaped like 
a true paladin, and lost his victory at Contras in 
order to carry to the beautiful Corisandre the flags 
that he had taken. To act, to dare, to enjoy, to 
expend force and trouble like a prodigal, to be 
given up to the present sensation, be forever 
urged by passions forever lively, support and 



lOO 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. 



Book II. 



search the extremes of all contrasts, that was the 
life of the sixteenth century. Henry at Fontenay 
" worked in the trenches with pick and mattock." 
On his return there was nothing but feasting. 
"We came together," says Marguerite, "to take 




walks in company, either in a lovely garden where 
are long alleys of cypress and laurel, or in the 
park which I had caused to be made, in alleys 
three thousand paces long, which border the river ; 
and the rest of the day was spent in all sorts of 
suitable pleasures, a ball ordinarily filling the after- 
noon and the evening." The grave Sully " took 



Chap. II. PAU. loi 

a mistress like the rest." In visiting the restored 
dining-hall, you repeople it invokmtarily with the 
sumptuous costumes described by Brantome : 
ladies " clad in orange-color and gold lace, robes of 
cloth of silver, of crisped cloth of gold, stuffs 
perfectly stiff with ornaments and embroidery. 
Queen Marguerite in a robe of flesh-colored 
Spanish velvet, heavily loaded with gold lace, 
so decked out with plumes and precious stones 
as nothing ever was before." I said to M. de 
Ronsard : "Do you not seem to see this beauti- 
ful queen, in such guise, appearing as the lovely 
Aurora, when she is going to spring up before 
the day, with her beautiful pale face, bordered 
with its ruby and carnation color?" At the ball 
in the evening, she loved to dance "the pavane 
of Spain and the Italian pazzcuiajio. The pas- 
sages in this were so well danced, the steps so 
judiciously conducted, the rests so beautifully 
made, that you knew not which most to admire, 
the beautiful manner of dancing, or the majesty 
of the steps, representing now gayety, now a fine 
and grave disdain." 

You may well believe that the good king was 
not sparing of sport. 

" // fut de ses sujets le vainqueiu- et le pere!''' 

The maids of honor of Marguerite could bear 
witness to this; hence intrigues, quarrels and con- 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



jugal comedies, one of which is very prettily and 
very artlessly told by the queen ; Mile, de Fosseuse 
was the heroine. " The pain seized her one morn- 
ing-, at the break of day, while in bed in the 
chamber of the maids, and she sent for my physi- 
cian and begged him to go and inform the king my 
husband, which he did. We were in bed in the 
same chamber, but in separate beds, according to 
our custom. When the physician gave him this 
bit of news, he was in great trouble, not know- 
ing what to do, fearful on the one hand lest she 
should be discovered, and on the other lest she 
should want help, for he loved her dearly. He 
determined, finally, to confess all to me, and 
to bee me eo to her assistance, for he knew 
well that, whatever might have passed, he should 
always find me read)' to serve him in anything 
that could please him. He opens my curtain 
and says to me : ' Dearest, I have concealed 
from you one thing which I must confess to you : 
I beg you to excuse me for it, and not to re- 
member all that I have said to )'Ou on this sub- 
ject. I^ut oblige me so niuch as to get up at 
once, and go to the assistance of Fosseuse, who is 
very ill ; I am sure that you would not wish, 
when you see her in that condition, to resent 
what is past. You know how much I love her ; I 
beir that vou will obliLre me in this matter.' I 



told him that I honored him too much to be of- 
fended with anything coming from him. That I 
would be off and do as if it were my daughter ; 
that in the mean time he should go to the chase 
and take everybody with him, so that no talk of it 
should be heard. 

" I had her promptly removed from the chamber 
of the maids and put into a chamber apart, with 
my physician and women to wait upon her, and 
gave her my best assistance. God willed that it 
should be only a daughter, which moreover was 
dead. After the delivery, she was carried to the 
chamber of the maids, where, though all possible 
discretion was used, they could not prevent the 
report from spreading throughout the castle. When 
the king my husband was returned from the chase, 
he went to see her according to his custom ; she 
beo-o-ed him that I would come to see her, as I was 
accustomed to visit all my maids when they were 
ill, thinking to stop by this means the spread of 
the report. The king my husband came into the 
chamber and found that I had o-one to bed ao-ain, 
for I was tired with getting up so early, and with 
the trouble I had had in renderino- her assistance. 
He begged that I would get up and go to see her; 
I told him that I had done so when she had need 
of my aid, but now she no longer had occasion for 
it ; that if I went there, I should reveal rather than 



I04 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



cloak the truth, and that everybody would point 
their fino-er at me. He was seriously vexed with 
me, and this was far from pleasant to me, for it 
seemed that I had not deserved such a recompense 




for what I had done in the morning". She often 
put him into similar mood toward me." 

Compassionate souls, who adniire the complai- 
sance of tlie queen, do not pity her too much: she 
punished the king-, by imitating" him, at Usson and 
elsewhere. 

And yet Pau was a lesser Geneva. Amidst 
these violences and this voluptuousness, devotion 



Chap. II. PAU. 105 

was warm ; they went to sermons or to the church, 
with the same air as to the battle-field or the ren- 
dezvous. This is because religion then was not a 
virtue, but a passion. In such case, the neighbor- 
ing passions, instead of extinguishing it, only in- 
flame ; the heart overflows on that side as on the 
others. When the lazzarone has stabbed his 
enemy, he finds a second pleasure, says Beyle, in 
prating about his anger, alongside a wire grating 
in a ereat box of black wood. The Hindoo that 
gets excited and howls at the feast of Juggernaut, 
to the hubbub of fifty thousand tom-toms, the 
American Methodist who weeps and cries aloud 
his sins in a revival, feels something the same sort 
of pleasure as an Italian enthusiast at the opera. 
That explains and reconciles the zeal and the gal- 
lantry of Marguerite. 

"They only allowed me," said she, "to have 
mass said in a litde chapel not more than three or 
four paces long, which, narrow as it was, was full 
when there were seven or eight of us there. So 
when they wanted to say mass, they raised the 
bridge of the castle, for fear that the Catholics of 
the country, who had no exercise of their religion, 
should hear of it ; for they had an infinite desire 
to assist at the holy sacrifice, of which they had 
been deprived for several years. And, urged by 
this sacred desire, the inhabitants of Pau found 



io6 



THE VALLEY OE OSS AC/. 



Book 11. 



means, at Whitsuntide, before the bridge was 
raised, to enter the castle, and 
sHp into the chapel, where 
they were not discovered until 
toward the end of mass, when, 
half opening the door to let in 
one of my people, some Hugue- 
nots who wer6 spying round 
the door perceived them, and 
went to tell it to le Pin, secre- 
tary of the king my husband, 
and he sent there some guards 
of the king my husband, who, 
draofo-ino- them forth and beat- 
ing them in my presence, car- 
ried them off to prison, where 
they remained a long time, and 
paid a heavy fine." 

The little chapel has disap- 
peared, I believe, since the cas- 
tle and the whole country were 




restored to the Catholic worship. Besides, this 
treatment arose from humanity : Saint-Pont, at 
Macon, "afforded the ladies, as they went out 
from the banquets that he gave, the pleasure of 
seeing a certain number of prisoners leap off from 
the bridge." Such were these men, extreme in 
everything, in fanaticism, in pleasure, in violence ; 
never did the fountain of desires flow fuller and 
deeper ; never did more vigorous passions unfold 
themselves with more of sap and greenness. 
Walking through these silent halls, disturbed from 
time to time by fair invalids or pale young con- 
sumptives who walk there, I fancied that enerva- 
tion of the inner nature came from the enervation 
of the bodies. We spend our time within doors, 
taken up with discussions, reflections and reading ; 
the gentleness of manners removes dangers from 
us, and industrial progress fatigues. They lived in 
the open air, ever following the chase and in war. 
" Queen Catherine was very fond of riding, up to 
the age of sixty and more, and of making great 
and active journeys, even after she had often 
fallen, to the great injury of her body, for she was 
several times so far hurt as to break her leg and 
wound her head." The rude exercises hardened 
their nerves ; their warmer blood, stirred by inces- 
sant peril, urged upon the brain impetuous ca- 
prices ; they made history, while we write it. 



io8 



THE VALLE Y OF OSS A U. 



Book II. 



III. 



The park is a great 
wood on a hill, embed- 
ded among meadows 
and harv^ests. You 
walk in long solitary al- 
leys, under colonnades 
of superb oaks, while to 
the left the lofty stems 
of the copses mount in 
close ranks upon the 
back of the hill. The 
fog was not yet lifted ; 
there was no motion 
in the air ; not a cor- 
ner of blue sky, not a 
sound in all the coun- 
try. The song of a 
bird came for an in- 
stant from the midst 
of the ash-trees, then 
sadly ceased. Is that 
then the sky of the 
south, and was it ne- 
cessary to conie to the 
happy country of the 
Rearnais to find such 




Chap. II. 



PAU. 



109 



melancholy impressions ? A little by-way brought 
us to a bank of the Gave: in a long pool 
of water was growing an army of reeds 
twice the height of a man ; their grayish spikes 
and their trembling leaves bent and whispered 
under the wind; a wild flower near by shed 
a vanilla perfume. We gazed on the broad 
country, the ranges of rounded hills, the silent 
plain under the dull dome of the sky. Three hun- 
dred paces away the Gave rolls between marshal- 
led banks, which it has covered with sand ; in the 
midst of the waters may be seen the moss-grown 
piles of a ruined bridge. One is at ease here, 
and yet at the bottom of the heart one feels a 
vague unrest ; the soul is softened and loses itself in 
melancholy and tender revery. Suddenly the clock 
strikes, and one has to go and prepare to take his 
soup between two commercial travellers. 




-J 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book 11. 



IV. 

To-day the sun shines. On my way to the 
Place Nationalc, I remarked a poor, half-ruin- 
ed church, which had been turned into a coach- 
house ; they have fastened upon it a carrier's sign. 
The arcades, in small gray stones, still round them- 
selves with an elegant boldness ; beneath are stow- 
ed away carts and casks and pieces of wood ; here 
and there workmen were handling wheels. A 
broad ray of light fell upon a pile of straw, and 
made the sombre corners seem yet darker ; the pic- 
tures that one meets with outweigh those one 
has come to seek. 

F>om the esplanade which is opposite, the whole 
valley and the mountains beyond may be seen ; 
this first sight of a southern sun, as it breaks from 
the rainy mists, is admirable ; a sheet of white light 
stretches from one horizon to another without meet- 
ing a single cloud. The heart expands in this im- 
mense space ; the very air is festal ; the dazzled 
eyes close beneath the brightness which deluges 
them and which runs over, radiated from the burn- 
ing dome of heaven. The current of the river 
sparkles like a girdle of jewels ; the chains of hills, 
yesterday veiled and damp, extend at their own 
sweet will beneath the warming, penetrating rays, 
and mount range upon range to spread out their 



Chap. II. 



PAU. 



green robe to the sun. In the distance, the blue 
Pyrenees look like a bank of clouds ; the air that 
bathes them shapes them into aerial forms, vapory 
phantoms, the farthest of which vanish in the ca- 
nescent horizon — dim contours, that might be taken 
for a fugitive sketch from the lightest of pencils. 
In the midst of the serrate chain the peak du 




Midi d' Ossau lifts its abrupt cone; at this 
distance, forms are softened, colors are blended, 
the Pyrenees are only the graceful bordering 
of a smiling landscape and of the magnificent 
sky. There is nothing imposing about them 
nor severe ; the beauty here is serene, and the 
pleasure pure. 



112 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

V. 

The statue of Henry IV., with an inscription in 
Latin and in patois, is on the esplanade ; the 
armor is finished so perfectly that it might make an 
armorer jealous. But why does the king wear so 
sad an air ? His neck is ill at ease on his shoul- 
ders ; his features are small and full of care ; he 
has lost his gayety, his spirit, his confidence in his 
fortune, his proud bearing. His air is neither that 
of a o-reat nor a orood man, nor of a man of Intel- 
lect ; his face is discontented, and one would say 
that he was bored with Pau. I am not sure that 
he was wrong : and yet the city passes for agreea- 
ble ; the climate is very mild, and invalids who fear 
the cold pass the winter in it. Balls are given in 
the clubs ; the English abound, and it is well known 
that in the matter of cookery, of beds and inns, 
these people are the first reformers in the universe. 

They would have done well in reforming the 
vehicles : the rickety little diligences of the 
country are drawn by gaunt jades which descend 
tlie hills on a walk, and make stops in the ascent. 
All encouragements of the whip are thrown away 
on their backs ; you could not bear them any 
grudge on that account, so piteous is their appear- 
ance, with their ridgy backbones, hanging cars, 
and shrunken bellies. The coachman rises on his 



Chap. II. 



PAU. 



1^3 



seat, pulls the reins, waves his arms, bawls and 
storms, clambers down and up again ; his is a rude 
calling, but he has a soul like his calling. His 
passengers are of small consequence to him ; he 
treats them as useful packages, a necessary 
counterpoise over which he has rights. At the 
foot of a mountain, the machine got its wheel into a 
ditch and tilted over ; every one leaped out after 




the manner of Panurge's sheep. He went running 
from one to another to get them back, especially 
exhorting the peOple from the imperiale, and point- 
ing out to them the danger to the vehicle, which was 
leaning back, and so needed ballast in front. They 
however remained cool, and went on afoot, while he 

followed grumbling and abusing their selfishness. 
8 



114 



THE VALLE Y OF OSS A U. 



-Book II. 



VI. 

The harvests, pale in the north, here wave with 
a reflex of reddish gold. A warmer sun makes 
the vigorous verdure shine more richly ; the stalks 
of maize spring from the earth like discharges of 
rockets, and their strong, wrinkled leaves fall over 
in plumes ; such burning rays are needed to urge the 
sap through those gross fibres and gild the massy 
spike. Toward Gan, the hills, over which undulates 
the road, draw nearer together, and )'ou travel on 




through little green valleys, planted with ash and 
alder in clusters, according to th(> capric(;s of the 
slopes, and with their feet bathed in li\ing water ; 
a pellucid stream borders the road, with waters som- 



Chap. II. PAU. 115 

bre and hurried under the cover of the trees, and 
then, by fits and starts, brilhant and blue as the sky. 
Four times in the course of a league it encounters a 
mill, leaps and foams, then resumes its course, hur- 
ried and stealthy ; during two leagues we have its 
company, half hid among the trees that it nourishes, 
and breathing: the freshness it exhales. In these 
oforofes, water is the mother of all life and the nurse 
of all beauty. 

At Louvie the valley of Ossau opens up between 




two mountains covered with brushwood, bald in 
places, spotted with moss and heather from which 
the rocks peep out like bones, while the flanks start 
forth in grayish embossments or bend in dark 
crevices. The plain of the harvests and meadows 
buries itself in the anfractuosities as if in creeks ; 
its contour folds itself about each new mass ; it 
essays to scale the lower ridges, and stops, van- 
quished by the barren rock. We go through three 
or four hamlets whitened by dust, whose roofs shine 



ii6 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. 



Book II. 



with a dull color like tarnished lead. Then the hori- 
zon is shut off; Mount Gourzy, robed in forests, bars 
the route ; beyond and above, like a second barrier, 
the peak of the Ger lifts its bald head, silvered with 
snows. The carriage slowly scales an acclivity 
which winds upon the flank of the mountain ; at 
the turn of a rock, in the shelter of a small gorge, 
may be seen P^aux Bonnes. 




CHAPTER III. 

EA UX BONNES. 
I. 

I THOUGHT that here I should find the coun- 
try ; a village like a hundred others, with long 
roofs of thatch or tiles, with crannied walls and 
shaky doors, and in the courts a pell-mell of carts 
with fagots, and tools, and domestic animals, in 
short, the whole picturesque and charming uncon- 
straint of country life. I find a Paris street and 
the promenades of the Bois de Boulogne. 

Never was country less countrified: you skirt a 
row of houses drawn up in line, like a row of soldiers 
when carrying arms, all pierced regularly with regu- 
lar windows, decked with signs and posters, bor- 
dered by a side-walk, and having the disagreeably 
decent aspect oi hotels garnis. These uniform build- 
ings, mathematical lines, this disciplined and formal 
architecture make a laughable contrast with the 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. 



Book II. 



green ridges that flank them. It seems grotesque 
that a httle warm water should have imported into 




these mountain hollows civilization and the cuisine. 
This singular village tries every year to extend it- 
self, and with great difficulty, so straitened and sti- 
fled is it in its ravine ; they break the rock, they 
open trenches on the declivity, they suspend houses 
over the torrent, they stick others, as it were, to the 
side of the mountain, they pile up their chimneys 
even to the roots of the beech-trees ; thus they con- 
struct behind the principal street a melancholy lane 



Chap. III. 



EAUX BONNES. 



119 



which dips down or raises itself as it can, muddy, 
steep, half filled with temporary stalls and wooden 
wine-shops, lodging-places of artisans and guides ; 
at last it drops down to the Gave, into a nook 
decked out with drying linen, which is washed in 
the same place with the hogs. 



/ /J'////' 




Of all places in the world, Eaux Bonnes is the 
most unpleasant on a rainy day, and rainy days are 
frequent there; the clouds are engulfed between 
two walls of the valley of Ossau, and crawl slowly 



THE VALLEY OF OSS Ad. Book II. 



along half way up the height ; the summits disap- 
pear, the floating masses come together, accumu- 
late because the gorge has no outlet, and fall in fine 
cold rain. The village becomes a prison ; the fog 
creeps to the earth, envelopes the houses, extin- 
guishes the light already obscured by the mountain ; 
the Enoflish miofht think themselves in London. 
The visitors look through the window-panes at the 
jumbled forms of the trees, the water that drips 
from the leaves, the mourninsf of the shiverinor and 
humid woods ; they listen to the gallop of belated 
riders, who return with clinging and pendent skirts, 
like fine birds with their plumage disordered by the 
rain ; they try whist in their despondency ; some 
go down to the reading-room and ask for the most 
blood-stained pages of Paul Feval or Frederic 
Soulie ; they can read nothing but the gloomiest 
dramas ; they discover leanings towards suicide in 
themselves, and construct the theory of assassina- 
tion. They look at the clock and bethink them- 
selves that the doctor has ordered them to drink 
three times a day ; then they button up their over- 
coats with an air of resignation, and climb the long, 
stiff slope of the streaming road ; the lines of um- 
brellas and soaked mantles are a pitiable spectacle ; 
they come, splashing through the water, and seat 
themselves in the drinking-hall. Kach one takes 
his syrup-flask from its numbered place on a sort 



Chap. III. 



EAUX BONNES. 



\\ 





of etagere, and the throng of 
the drinkers form in Hne about 
the tap. For the rest, patience 
is soon acquired here ; amid 
such idleness the mind goes to 
sleep, the fog puts an end to 
ideas, and you follow the crowd 
mechanically ; you act only at 
the instigation of others, and 
you look at objects without re- 
ceiving from them any reaction. 
After the first glass, you wait 
an hour before taking another ; 
meanwhile you march up and 
down, elbowed by the dense 
groups, who drag themselves 
laboriously along between the 
columns. Not a seat to be had, 
except two wooden benches 
where the ladies sit, with their 
feet resting upon the damp 
stones : the economy of the 
administration supposes that 
the weather is always fine. 
Wearied and dejected faces 
pass before the eyes without 
awaking any interest. For the 
twentieth time you look over 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



the marble trinkets, the shop with razors and scis- 
sors, a map that hangs on the wall. What is there 
that one is not capable of on a rainy day, if obliged 
to keep moving for an hour between four walls, 
amidst the buzzing of two hundred people ? You 
study the posters, contemplate assiduously some 
figures which pretend to represent the manners of 
the country : these are elegant and rosy shep- 
herds, who lead to the dance smiling shepherd- 
esses rosier than themselves. You stretch your 
neck out at the door only to see a gloomy passage 
where invalids are soaking their feet in a trough 
of warm water, all in a row like school-children on 
cleaning and excursion days. After these distrac- 
tions you return to your lodging, and find your- 
selves tete-a-tete, in close conversation with your 
chest of drawers and your light-stand. 




Chap. III. 



EAUX BONNES. 



123 



11. 

People who have any appetite take refuge at the 
table ; they did not count upon the musicians. First 
we saw a bUnd man come in, a heavy, thick-headed 
Spaniard, then the vioHnists of the country, then an- 
other bHnd man. They play pot-pourris of waltzes, 
country dances, bits from operas, strung- one upon 
another, galloping along, above the note or below 
it, with admirable fearlessness, despoiling every 
repertory in their musical race. The next day we 




had three Germans, tall as towers, stiff as stones, 
perfectly phlegmatic, playing without a gesture and 
passing the plate without a word ; at least they 
play in time. On the third day the musicians of 



124 THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. 



a neighboring- village appeared, a violin and fla- 
geolet ; they executed their piece with such energy 
and discord, in tones so piercing, so long-drawn-out 
and rending, that, by universal consent, they 
were put out doors. They began again under the 
windows. 

A good appetite is a consolation for all ills ; s(j 
much the worse if you will, or so much the better 
for humanity. It is necessary to bear up against 
the tediousness, the rain and the music of Eaux 
Bonnes. The renewed blood then bears gayety to 
the brain, and the body persuades the soul that 
everything is for the best in the best of worlds. 
You will have pity on those poor musicians as you 
leave the table ; Voltaire has proved that an easy 
digestion induces compassion, and that a good 
stomach orives a o^ood heart. Between fortv and 
fifty years of age, a man is handsome when, 
after dinner, he folds up his napkin and begins 
his indispensable promenade. He walks with legs 
apart, chest out, resting heavily on his stick, his 
cheeks colored by a slight warmth, humming be- 
tween his teeth some old refrain of his youth ; 
it seems to him that the universe is brought 
nicely together ; he smiles and is bland, he is the 
first to reach you his hand. What machines we are ! 
Yet why comi^lain of it ? My good neighbor would 
tell you that you have the key of your mechanism ; 



Chap. HI. 



EA UX BONNES. 



125 



turn the spring toward the side of happiness. This 
may be kitchen philosophy, — very well. He who 
practised it did not trouble himself about the name. 




// ^N 



126 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book 11. 



III. 

On sunny days, we live in the open air. A sort 
of yard, called the English garden, stretches between 
the street and the mountain, carpeted with a poor 
turf, withered and full of holes ; the ladies constitute 







it their drawing-room and work there ; the dandies, 
lying on several chairs at once, read their journal 
and proudly smoke their cigar; the little girls, in 
embroidered /^^/z/c^^z/ji", chatter with coquettish ges- 
tures and graceful little ways ; they are trying in 
advance the parts they will play as lovely dolls. 
But for the red cassocks of the little jumping pea- 
sants, the aspect is that of the Champs Elysces. 
You leave this spot by beautiful shaded walks which 
mount in zigzags upon the flanks of the two moiin- 



Chap. III. 



EAUX BONNES. 



127 



tains, one above the torrent, the other above the 
city ; toward noon, numbers of bathers may be met 
here lying upon the heather, nearly all with a novel 
in hand. These lovers of the country resemble the 




banker who loved concerts ; he enjoyed them be- 
cause then he could calculate his dividends. Pardon 
these hapless creatures ; they are punished for 
knowine how to read and not knowing- how to look 
about. 

IV. 

Anomalous beeches sustain the slopes here ; 
no description can give an idea of these 
stunted colossi, eight feet high, and round which 



128 



THE VALLE V OF OSS A U 



Book II. 



three men could not reach. Beaten back by the 
wind that desolates the declivity, their sap has 
been accumulating for centuries in huge, stunted, 
twisted and interlaced branches ; all embossed with 




knots misshapen and blackened, they stretch and 
coil themselves fantastically, like limbs swollen 
by disease and distended by a supreme eftbrt. 
Through the s|)lit bark ma)- be seen the vegetable 
muscles enrolling themselves about the trunk, and 
crushing each other like the limbs of wrestlers. 
These squat torsos, half overthrown, almost hori- 
zontal, lean toward the plain ; Init their feet bury 
themselves among the rocks with such ties, that 



Chap. III. EAUX BONNES. 129 

sooner than break that forest of roots, one might 
tear out a side of the mountain. Now and then a 
trunk, rotted by water, breaks open, hideously 
eventerated ; the edges of the wound spread farther 
apart with every year ; they wear no longer the 
shape of trees, and yet they live, and cannot be 
conquered by winter, by their slope, nor by time, 
but boldly put forth into their native air their whit- 
ish shoots. If, under the shades of evening, you 
pass by the tortured tops and yawning trunks of 
these old inhabitants of the mountains, when the 
wind is beating the branches, you seem to hear 
a hollow plaint, extorted by a century's toil ; these 
stranofe forms recall the fantastic creatures of the 
old Scandinavian mythology. You think on the 
giants imprisoned by fate, between walls that con- 
tracted day by day, and bent them down and les- 
sened them, and then returned them to the light, 
after a thousand years of torture, furious, mis- 
shapen and dwarfed. 

V. 

Toward four o'clock the cavalcades return ; 
the small horses of the country are gentle, 
and gallop without too much effort ; far away in 
the sunlight gleam the white and luminous veils 
of the ladies ; nothing is more graceful than a 
pretty woman on horseback, when she is neither 
9 



130 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

imprisoned in a black riding-habit, nor topped with 
a chimney-pot hat. Nobody here wears this 
funereal, poverty-stricken English costume ; in a 
gay country people assume gay colors ; the sun is a 
eood counsellor. It is forbidden to return at a ^d\- 
lop, which is reason enough why ever3^body should 
return at that gait. Ah, the great art of imitating 
the coming in of the cattle ! They bend in the 
saddle, the highway resounds, the windows quiver, 
they sweep proudly before the saunterers who stop 
to gaze ; it is a triumph ; the administration of 
Eaux Bonnes does not know the human heart, es- 
pecially the heart of woman. 

In the evening, everybody meets on a level 
promenade ; it is a flat road half a league long, 
cut in the mountain of Gourzy. The remainder 
of the country is nothing but steeps and preci- 
pices ; any one who for eight days has known the 
fatifjue of climbincr bent double, of stumblino- down 
hill, of studying the laws of equilibrium while flat 
on his back, will find it agreeable to walk on level 
ground, and to move his feet freely without think- 
ing of his head ; it gives a perfectly new sensation 
of security and ease. The road winds along a 
wooded hill-side, furrowed by winter torrents into 
whitish ravines ; a few wasted springs slip away un- 
der the stones in their stream beds, and cover 
them with climbing plants ; you walk under the 




Ijl 



\\--., 



U". 



' , *\ , Ml «i . #1 jS Til ft^TV .-" 




•' IN THE DEPTH OF THE GORGES IT IS ALREADY DARK ; BUT TURN AROUND 

AND YOU MAY SEE THE SUMMIT OF THE GER, GLEAMING WITH 

A SOFT CARNATION CHERISHING THE LAST SMILE 

OF THE SUN." (P. 133.) 



Chap. III. EAUX BONNES. 133 

massive beeches, then skirt along an inclined plane, 
peopled with ferns, where feed the tinkling herds ; 
the heat has abated, the air is soft, a perfume of 
healthy and wild verdure reaches you on the light- 
est breeze ; fair white-robed promenaders pass by in 
the twilight with ruffles of lace and floating muslins 
that rise and flutter like the wings of a bird. 
Every day we went to a seat upon a rock at the 
end of this road ; from there, through the whole 
valley of Ossau, you follow the torrent grown into a 
river ; the rich valley, a mosaic of yellow harvests 
and green fields, broadly opens out to the confines 
of the landscape, and allows the eye to lose itself 
in the dim distance of Beam. From each side 
three mountains strike out their feet towards the 
river, and cause the oudine of the plain to rise and 
fall in waves ; the furthest slope down like pyra- 
mids, and their pale blue declivities stand out upon 
the rosy zone of the dim sky. In the depth of 
the gorges it is already dark ; but turn around and 
you may see the summit of the Ger, gleaming with 
a soft carnation cherishing the last smile of the sun. 



134 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 




VI. 



On Sunday a procession of fine toilets goes up 
toward the church. This church is a round 
box, of stone and plaster, built for fifty persons but 
made to hold two hundred. Every half-hour the 
tide of the faithful ebbs and flows. Invalid priests 
abound and say as many masses as may be wanted : 
everything at Eaux Bonnes suffers for want of 
room ; they form in line for prayers as for 
drinking, and are as crowded at the chapel as at 
the tap. 

Occasionally a purveyor of public pleasures un- 
dertakes the duty of enlivening the afternoon : an 
eloquent poster announces the jcn du canard. 
They fasten a perch to a tree, a cord to the perch, 
and a duck to the cord ; the most serious-minded 
people follow the preparation with marked interest. 
I have seen men who yawn at the opera form 
a ring, under a hot sun, for a whole hour in order 
to witness the decapitation of the poor hanging 
creature. If you are generous-minded and greed)- 



Chap. III. 



EA UX BONNES. 



T35 



of sensations in addition, you give two sous to a 
small boy ; in consideration of which he has his 
eyes bandaged, is made to turn round and round, 
has an old sabre given to him, and is pushed 
forward, in the midst of the laughter and outcry 




of the spectators. ''• Right ! left ! halloo ! strike ! 
forward ! " he knows not which to heed, and cuts 
away into the air. If by rare chance he hits the 
creature, if by rarer chance he strikes the neck, or 
if, indeed, he takes off the head by miracle, he 
carries off the duck to have it cooked, and eat it. 
The public is not exacting in matter of amusement. 
If it were announced that a mouse was to drown 
itself in a pool, they would run as if to a fire. 



136 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



" Why not ? " said my neighbor, an odd, abrupt 
sort of man : " This is a tragedy and a per- 
fectly regular one ; see if it has not all the classic 
parts. First, the exposition ; the instruments of 
torture that are displayed, the crowd which comes 
together, the distance that is marked, the animal 
that is fastened up. It is a protasis of the complex 
order, as M. Lysidas used to say. Secondly, the 
action ; every time that a small boy starts, you are 
in suspense, you rise on tip-toe, your heart leaps, 
you are as interested in the pendent animal as in a 
fellow-creature. Do you say that the action is 
always the same ? Simplicity is the characteristic 
of great works, and this one is after the Indian 
style. Thirdly, the catastrophe ; if ever it was 
bloody it is so here. As to the passions, they are 
those demanded by Aristotle, terror and pity. See 
how shiveringly the poor creature lifts its head, 
when it feels the current of air from the sword ! 
With what a lamentable and resigned look it awaits 
the stroke ! The chorus of spectators takes part in 
the action, praises or blames, just as in the antique 
tragedy. In short, the public is right in being 
amused, and pleasure is never wrong." 

" You talk like la Harpe ; this duck would ac- 
cept his lot in patience, if he could hear you. And 
the ball, what do you say of that?" 

" It is worth as much as the one at the Hotel de 



Chap. III. EAUX BONNES. 137 

France with fine people ; our dancing is nothing 
but walking, a pretext for conversation. Look 
how the servants and the guides dance ; such cuts 
and pigeon wings ! they go into it from pure fun, 
with all their heart, they feel the pleasure of mo- 
tion, the impulse of their muscles ; this is the true 
dance invented by joy and the need of physical ac- 
tivity. These fellows fall to and handle each other 
like timbers. That great girl there is servant at 
my hotel ; say, does not that tall figure, that serious 
air, that proud attitude, recall the statues of antiqui- 
ty ? Force and health are always the first of beau- 
ties. Do you think that the languid graces, the 
conventional smiles of our quadrilles would bring 
together all this crowd ? We get further away 
from Nature with every day ; our life is all in the 
brain, and we spend our time in composing and lis- 
tening to set phrases. See how I am uttering them 
now ; to-morrow, I turn over a new leaf, buy a 
stout stick, put on gaiters and tramp over the coun- 
try. You do the same ; let each go his own way, 
and try not to come together." 




CHAPTER IV. 



LANDSCAPES. 



I. 



I HAVE determined to find some pleasure in my 
walks ; have come out alone by the first path 
that offered itself, and walk straight on as chance 
may lead. Provided you have noted two or three 
prominent points, you are sure of finding the way 
back. You can now enjoy the unexpected, and 
discover the country. To know where you are 
going and by what way is certain boredom ; the 
imagination deflowers the landscape in advance. It 
works and builds according to its . own pleasure ; 
then when you reach your goal all must be over- 
turned ; that spoils your disposition ; the mind 
keeps its bent, and the beauty it has fancied pre- 
judices that which it sees; it fails to understand 



Chap. IV. 



LANDSCAPES. 



139 



tliis, because it is already taken up with anotlier. 
I suffered a most orrievous disenchantment when I 
saw the sea for the first time : it was a morning- 
in autumn ; flecks of purphsh cloud dappled the 
sky ; a gentle breeze covered the sea with little 
uniform waves. I seemed to see one of those lonof 
stretches of beet-root that are found in the envi- 
rons of Paris, intersected by patches of green cab- 
bages and bands of russet barley. The distant 
sails looked like the winQ;s of homeward-bound 
pigeons. The view seemed to me confined ; the 
artists, in their pictures, had represented the sea as 
greater. It was three days before I could get back 
the sensation of immensity. 




140 



THE VALLE Y OF OSS A U. 



Book II. 



11. 

The course of the Valentin is nothincr but a 
long fall between multitudes of rocks. All along 
the promenade Eynard, for half a league, you 
may hear it rumbling under your feet. At the 
bridee of Discoo, its standinQ^-crround fails it alto- 




gether ; it falls into an amphitheatre, from shelf to 
shelf, in jets that cross each other and mingle their 
flakes of foam ; then under an arcade of rocks and 
stones, it eddies in deep basins, whose edges it has 
polished, and where the grayish emerald of its 



Chap. IV. LANDSCAPES. 143 

waters diffuses a soft and peaceful reflection. Sud- 
denly it makes a leap of thirty feet in three dark 
masses, and rolls in silver spray down a funnel of 
verdure. A fine dew gushes over the turf and 
gives life to it, and its rolling pearls sparkle as they 
glide along the leaves. Our northern fields afford 
no notion of such vividness ; this unceasing cool- 
ness with this fiery sun is needed in order to paint 
the vegetable robe with such a magnificent hue. 
I saw a great, wooded mountain-side stretch slop- 
ing away before me ; the noonday sun beat down 
upon it ; the mass of white rays pierced through 
the vault of the trees ; the leaves glowed in splen- 
dor, either transparent or radiated. Over all this 
lighted slope no shadow could be distinguished ; a 
warm, luminous evaporation covered all, like the 
white veil of a woman. I have often since seen 
this strange garb of the mountains, especially to- 
wards evening ; the bluish atmosphere enclosed 
in the gorges becomes visible ; it grows thick, it 
imprisons the light and makes it palpable. The 
eye delights in penetrating into the fair network of 
gold that envelopes the ridges, sensitive to the 
softness and depth of it ; the salient edges lose 
their hardness, the harsh contours are softened ; 
it is heaven, descending and lending its veil to 
cover the nakedness of the savage daughters of the 
earth. Pardon me these metaphors ; I appear. 



144 



7'HE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



perhaps, to be studying turns of expression, and 
yet I am only recounting my sensations. 

From this place a meadow-path leads to the 
gorge of the Serpent : this is a gigantic notch in 
the perpendicular mountain. The brook that runs 
through it crawls along overborne by heaped-up 




blocks ; its bed is nothing but a ruin. You ascend 
along a crumbling pathway, clinging to the stems 
of box and to the edges of rocks ; frightened liz- 
ards start off like an arrow, and cower in the clefts 
of slaty slabs. A leaden sun inflames the bluish 
rocks ; the reflected rays make the air like a fur- 
nace. In this parched chaos the only life is that 
of the water, which glides, murmuring, beneath the 
stones. At the bottom of the ravine the mountain 
abruptly lifts its vertical wall to the height of two 
hundred feet ; the water drops in long white 
threads along this polished wall, and turns its red- 
dish tint to brown ; during the whole fall it does 
not cjuit the cliff, but clings to it like silvery tres- 



Chap. IV. LANDSCAPES. 147 



ses, or a pendent garland of convolvulus. A fine 
broad basin stays It for an instant at the foot of the 
mountain, and then discharges it in a streamlet into 
the bog. 

These mountain streams are unlike those of the 
plains ; nothing sullies them ; they never have any 
other bed than sand or naked stone. However 
deep they may be, you may count their blue peb- 
bles ; they are transparent as the air. Rivers have 
no other diversity than that of their banks ; their 
regular course, their mass always gives the same 
sensation ; the Gave, on the other hand, is a for- 
ever-changing spectacle ; the human face has not 
more marked, more diverse expressions. When 
the water, green and profound, sleeps beneath the 
rocks, its emerald eyes wear the treacherous look 
of a naiad who would charm the passer-by only to 
drown him ; then, wanton that it is, leaps blindly 
between the rocks, turns its bed topsy-turvy, 
rises aloft in a tempest of foam, dashes itself im- 
potently and furiously into spray against the bowl- 
der that has vanquished it. Three steps further 
on, it subsides and goes frisking capriciously along- 
side the bank in changing eddies, braided with 
bands of light and shade, twisting voluptuously 
like an adder. When the rock of its bed is broad 
and smooth, it spreads out, veined with rose and 
azure, smilingly offering its level glass to the whole 



148 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



mass of the sunlight. Over the bending plants, it 
threads its silent way in lines straight and tense as 
in a bundle of rushes, and with the spring and 
swiftness of a flying trout. When it falls opposite 




the sun, the hues of the rainbow may be seen 
trembling in its crystal threads, vanishing, reap- 
pearing, an aerial work, a s)'lph of light, alongside 
which a bee's wing would seem coarse, and which 
fairy fingers would in vain strive to c(|ual. Seen 
in the distance, the whole Gave is onl)- a storm of 
silvered falls, intersected by si)lendid blue expanses. 
Fiery and jo)'ful youth, useless and full of poetry; 
to-morrow that troubled wave will rc.-ccixc the filth 



of cities, and quays of stone will imprison its course 
by way of regulation, 

III. 

At the bottom of an ice-cold gorge rolls the 
cascade of Larresecq. It does not deserve its 
renown : it is a sort of dilapidated stairway with a 
dirty stream, lost among stones and shifting earth, 
awkwardly scrambling down it ; but, in getting 
there, you pass by a profound steep-edged hollow, 
where the torrent rolls along swallowed up in the 
caverns it has scooped out, obstructed by the 
trunks of the trees that it uproots. Overhead, lordly 
oaks meet in arcades ; the shrubs steep their roots 
far below in the turbulent stream. No sunlight 
penetrates into this dark ravine ; the Gave pierces 
its way through, unseen and icy. At the outlet 
where it streams forth, you hear its hoarse outcry ; 
it is struggling among the rocks that choke it : one 
might fancy it a bull stricken by the pangs of 
death. 

This valley is solitary and out of the world ; it is 
without culture ; no tourists, not even herdsmen 
are to be found ; three or four cows, perhaps, are 
there, busily cropping the herbage. Other gorges 
at the sides of the road and in the mountain of 
Gourzy are still wilder. There the faint trace of an 



i.So THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Booic II. 

ancient pathway may with difficulty be made out. 




Can anythinij^ be sweeter than the certainty of be- 
ino- alone ? In any widely known spot, you are in 
constant dread of an incursion of tourists; the hal- 
looing of guides, the loud-voiced admiration, the 
bustle, whether of fastening horses, or of unpacking 
provisions, or of airing opinions, all disturb the 
budding sensation ; civilization recovers its hold 



Chap. IV. LANDSCAPES. 151 

upon you. But here, what security and what si- 
lence ! nothing that recalls man ; the landscape is 
just what it has been these six thousand years : the 
grass grows useless and free as on the first day ; 
no birds among the branches; only now and then 
may be heard the far-off cry of a soaring hawk. 
Here and there the face of a huge, projecting rock 
patches with a dark shade the uniform plane of the 
trees: it is a virgin wilderness in its severe beauty. 
The soul fancies that it recognizes unknown friends 
of lone aeo ; the forms and colors are in secret 
harmony with it ; when it finds these pure, and that 
it enjoys them unmixed with outside thought, it 
feels that it is entering into its inmost and calmest 
depth — a sensation so simple, after the tumult of 
our ordinary thoughts, is like the gentle murmur 
of an .'^olian harp after the hubbub of a ball. 



IV. 



Going down the Valentin, on the slope of the 
Afontagne Verte, I found landscapes less aus- 
tere. You reach the right bank of the Gave 
d'Ossau. A pretty streamlet slips down the 
mountain, encased between two walls of rounded 
stones all purple with poppies and wild mallows. 
Its fall has been turned to account in driving rows 



152 



THE VALLE V OF OSSA U. 



Book II. 



of saws incessantly back and forth over blocks of 
marble. A tall, bare-footed girl, in rags, ladles 
up sand and water for wetting the machine ; by the 




aid of the sand the iron blade eats away the block. 
A foot-path follows the river bank, lined with 
houses, huge oaks and fields of Indian corn ; on 
the other side is an arid reach of pebbly shore, 
where children are paddling near some hogs 



Chap. IV. LANDSCAPES. 153 

asleep in the sand ; on the transparent wave, flocks 
of ducks rock with the undulations of the current : 
it is the country and culture after solitude and the 
desert. The pathway winds through a plantation 
of osiers and willows ; the long, waving stalks 
that love the rivers, the pale pendent foliage, are 
infinitely graceful to eyes accustomed to the in- 
tense green of the mountains. On the right may 
be seen the narrow rocky ways that lead to the 
hamlets scattered over the slopes. The houses 
there lean their backs against the mountain, 
shelved one above another, so as to look down 
upon the valley. At noon the people are all 
absent. Every door is closed ; three or four old 
women, who alone are left in the village, are 
spreading grain upon the level rock which forms 
the street or esplanade. What more singular than 
this long, natural flag-stone, carpeted with gilded 
heads of grain. The dark and narrow church 
ordinarily rises from a terraced yard, enclosed by a 
low wall ; the bell-tower is white and square, with 
a slated spire. Under the porch may be read a 
few epitaphs carved in the stone ; these, for the 
most part, are the names of Invalids who have died 
at Eaux Bonnes ; I remarked those of two broth- 
ers. To die so far from home and alone ! It is 
touching to read these words of sympathy graven 
upon a tomb ; this sunlight is so sweet ! the val- 



154 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



ley so beautiful ! you seem to breathe health in 
the air ; you want to live ; one wishes, as the old 
poet says, " Se rejouir longtemps de sa force et de 
sa jeunesse." The love of life is imparted with the 
love of light. How often, beneath the gloomy 
northern sky, do we form a similar desire ? 

At the turn of the mountain is the entrance 
into an oak wood that rises on one of the de- 
clivities. These lofty, roomy forests give to the 
south shade Avithout coolness. High up, among 
the trunks, shines a patch of blue sky ; light and 
shade dapple the gray moss like a silken design 
upon a velvet ground. A heavy, warm air, loaded 
with vegetable emanations, rises to the face ; it fills 
the chest and affects the head like wine. The 
monotonous sound of the cricket and the grass- 
hopper comes from wheat-land and meadow, from 
mountain and from plain ; you feel that living 
myriads are at work among the heather and under 
the thatch ; and in the veins, where ferments the 
blood, courses a vague sensation of comfort, the 
uncertain state between sleeping and dreaming, 
which steeps the soul in animal life and stifles 
thought under the dull impressions of the senses. 
You stretch yourself out, and are content with 
merely living ; you feel not the passage of the 
hours, but are happy in the present moment, with- 
out a thought for past or future ; you gaze upon 



the slender sprigs of moss, the grayish spikes of 
the grasses, the long ribands of the shining herbs ; 
you follow the course of an insect striving to get 
over a thicket of turf, and clambering up and down 
in the labyrinth of its stalks. Why not confess 
that you have become a child again and are 
amused with the least of sights ? What is the 
country but a means of returning to our earliest 
youth, of finding again that faculty of happiness, 
that state of deep attention, that indifference to 
everything but pleasure and the present sensation, 
that facile joy which is a brimming spring ready 
to overflow at the least impulse ? I passed an hour 
beside a squadron of ants who were dragging the 
body of a big fly across a stone. They were bent 
upon the dismemberment of the vanquished ; at 
each leg a little workwoman, in a black bodice, 
pulled and worked with all her might ; the rest held 
the body in place. I never saw efforts more fear- 
ful ; at times their prey rolled off the stone ; then 
they had to begin over again. At last, fatigued 
by the toils of war, and wanting power to cut 
up and carry off the prey, they resigned themselves 
to eating it on the spot. 



llMi 




156 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



V. 

The view from Mount Gourzy is much ad- 
mired ; the traveller is informed that he will 
see the whole plain of Beam as far as Pau. I 
am obliored to take the word of the STuide-book 
for it ; I found clouds at the summit and saw noth- 
ing but the foo-. At the end of the forest that 
covers the first slope lay some enormous trees, 
half rotten, and already whitened with moss. 
Some mummies of pine trees were left standing ; 
but their pyramids of branches showed a shattered 
side. Old oaks split open as high up as a man's 
head, crowned their wound with mushrooms and 
red strawberries. From the manner in which the 
""round is strewn it mio-ht be called a battle-field 
laid waste by bullets ; it is the herdsmen who, for 
mere amusement, set fire to the trees. 

My neighbor, the tourist, told me next day that 
I had not lost much, and gave me a dissertation 
against the views from mountain-tops. He is a re- 
solute traveller, a great lover of painting, very odd. 
however, and accustomed to believing nothing but 
himself, enthusiastic reasoner, violent in his opinions 
and fruitful in paradox. He is a singular man ; at 
fift}', he is as active as if he were but twenty. He 
is dry, nervous, always well and alert, his legs for- 



ever in motion, his head fermenting with some 
idea which has just sprung up in his brain and 
which during two days will appear to him the finest 
in the world. He is always under way and a 
hundred paces ahead of others, 
seeking truth with rash bold- 
ness, even to loving danger, 
finding pleasure in contradicting 
and beine contradicted, and now 
and then deceived by his mili- 
tant and adventurous spirit. He 
has nothing to hamper him ; 
neither wife, children, place nor 
ambition. I like him, notwith- 
standing his want of modera- 
tion, because he is sincere ; bit 
by bit he has told me his life, and I have found 
out his tastes; his name is Paul, and he was 
left, at the age of twenty, without parents and 
with an income of twelve thousand francs. From 
experience of himself and of the world, he judged 
that an occupation, an office or a household would 
weary him, and he has remained free. He found 
that amusements failed to amuse, and he gave 
up pleasures ; he says that suppers give him the 
headache, that play makes him nervous, that 
a respectable mistress ties a man down, and a 
hired mistress disorusts him. So he has turned 




ic8 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



his attention to travelling and reading. "It is 
only water, if you will," said he, "but that is better 
than your doctored wine : at least, it is better for 
my stomach." Besides, he finds himself comforta- 
ble under his system, and maintains that tastes such 
as his grow with age, that, in short, the most sen- 
sible of senses, the most capable of new and vari- 
ous pleasures is the brain. He confesses that he is 
dainty in respect of ideas, slighdy selfish, and that 
he looks upon the world merely as a spectator, as 
if it were a theatre of marionettes. I grant that he 
is a thoroughly good fellow at heart, usually good- 
humored, careful not to step on the toes of others, 
at times calculated to cheer them up, and that, at 
least, he has the habit of remaining modestly and 
quietly in his corner. We have philosophized be- 
yond measure between ourselves, or rather against 
one another ; you may skip the following pages if 
you are not fond of dissertations. 

He could not bear to have people go up a moun- 
tain in order to look down on the plain. 

"They don't know what they are doing," said he. 
" It is an absurdity of perspective. It is destroy- 
ing a landscape for the better enjoyment of it. At 
such a distance there are neither forms nor colors. 
The heights are mere molehills, the villages are 
spots, the rivers are lines drawn by a ])en. The 
objects are all lost in one grayish tint; the contrast 



Chap. IV. 



LANDSCAPES. 



159 



of lights and shades is blotted out ; everything is 
diminished ; you make out a multitude of imper- 
ceptible objects, — a mere Liliputian world. And 
thereupon you cry out at the magnificence ! Does 
a painter ever take it into his head to scale a 
height in order to copy the score of leagues of 




ground that may be seen from thence ? That is 
good only for a land-surveyor. The basins, high- 
ways, tillage, are all seen as in an atlas. Do you 
go then in search of a map ? A landscape is a 
picture ; you should put yourself at the point of 
sight. But no ; the beauty is all ciphered mathe- 
matically ; it is calculated that an elevation of a 
thousand feet makes it a thousand times more 
beautiful. The operation is admirable, and its only 
fault is that it is absurd, and that it leads through 
a ereat deal of fatieue to immeasurable boredom." 



i6o THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



But the tourists, when once at the summit, are 
carried awa)' Avith enthusiasm. 

"Pure cowarchce — they are afraid of beini/" ac- 
cused of dryness, and of being thought prosy; 
everybody now-a-days has a subhme soul, and a 
subhme soul is condemned to notes of admiration. 
There are still sheep-like minds, who take their 
admirations on trust and get excited out of mere 
imitation. My neighbor says that this is fine, 
the book thinks so too ; I have paid to come up, 
I ought to be charmed ; accordingly I am. I was 
one day on a mountain with a family to whom the 
guide pointed out an indistinct bluish line, saying, 
' There is Toulouse ! ' The father, with sparkling 
eyes, repeated to the son, ' There is Toulouse ! ' 
And he, at sight of so much joy, cried with trans- 
port, ' There is Toulouse ! ' They learned to feel 
the beautiful, as any one learns to bow, through 
family tradition. It is so that artists are formed, 
and that the great aspects of Nature imprint for- 
ever upon the soul solemn emotions." 

Then an ascent is an error of taste ? 

" Not at all ; if the plain is ugly, seen from above, 
the mountains themselves are beautiful ; and indeed 
they are beautiful only from above. When you are in 
the valley they overwhelm you ; )'ou cannot take 
them in, you see only one side of them, you cannot 
appreciate their height nor their size. One thou- 



Chap. IV. 



LANDSCAPES. 



i6i 



sand feet and ten thousand are all the same to you ; 
the spectator is like an ant in a well ; at one mo- 
ment distance blots out the beauty ; the next, it is 
proximity does away with the g-randeur. From 





the top of a peak, on the other hand, the moun- 
tains proportion themselves to our organs, the 
eye wanders over the ridges and takes in their 
whole ; our mind comprehends them, because our 
body dominates them. Go to Saint-Sauveur, to 



i62 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

Barecres ; you will see that those monstrous masses 
have as expressive a physiognomy, and represent 
as well-defined an idea as a tree or an animal. 
Here you have found nothing but pretty details ; 
the ensemble is tiresome." 

You talk of this country as a sick man of his 
doctor. What have you to say then against these 
mountains ? 

" That they have no marked character ; they 
have neither the austerity of bald peaks nor the 
lovely roundings of wooded hills. These frag- 
ments of grayish verdure, this poor mantle of 
stunted box pierced by the projecting bones of 
the rock, those scattered patches of yellowish 
moss, resemble rags ; I like to have a person either 
naked or clothed, and do not like your tatterdema- 
lion. The very forms are wanting in grandeur, the 
valleys are neither abrupt nor smiling. I do not 
find the perpendicular walls, the broad glaciers, the 
heaps of bald and jagged summits which are seen 
further on. The country does not amount to much 
either as plain or mountain ; it should either be put 
forward or held back." 

You give advice to Nature. 

"Why not? She has her uncertainties and in- 
congruities like any one else. She is not a god, 
but an artist whose genius inspires him to-day and 
to-morrow lets him clown again. A landscape in 



Chap. IV. LANDSCAPES. 165 

order to be beautiful must have all its parts stamp- 
ed with the common idea and contributing to pro- 
duce a sinele sensation. If it mves the lie here to 
what it says yonder, it destroys itself, and the spec- 
tator is in the presence of nothing but a mass of 
senseless objects. What though these objects be 
coarse, dirty, vulgar ? provided they make up a 
whole by their harmony, and that they agree in 
giving us a single impression, we are pleased." 

So that a court-yard, a worm-eaten hut, a 
parched and melancholy plain, may be as beautiful 
as the sublimest mountain. 

" Certainly. You know the fields of the Flemish 
painters, how flat they are ; you are never tired of 
looking at them. Take something that is still more 
trivial, an interior of Van Ostade ; an old peasant 
is sharpening a chopping-knife in the corner, the 
mother is swaddling her nursling, three or four 
brats are rolling about among the tools, the kettles 
and benches ; a row of hams is ranged in the chim- 
ney, and the great old bed is displayed in the back- 
ground under its red curtains. What could be 
more common ! But all these good people have 
an air of peaceful contentment ; the babies are 
warm and easy in the over-wide breeches, glossy 
antiques transmitted from generation to generation. 
There must have been habits of security and 
abundance, for a scattered household to lie pell- 



i66 



THE VALLE V OE OSS J U. 



Book II. 



mell on the ground in this fashion ; this comfort 
must have lasted from father to son, for the furni- 
ture to have assumed that sombre color and all the 
hues to harmonize. There is not an object here 
that does not point to the unconstraint of an easy- 
eoino- life and uniform o-ood-nature. If this mutual 
fitness of the parts is the mark of fine painting, 
why not of fine nature? Real or fancied, the 
object is the same ; I praise or I blame one 
with as (jood rio-ht as the other, because the 
practice or the violation of the same rules pro- 
duces in me the same enjoyment or the same 
displeasure." 







ABOVIC (JAUAS. 



Mountains then may have another beauty than 



that of grandeur ? 



Chap. IV. LANDSCAPES. 167 

" Yes, since they sometimes have a different ex- 
pression. Look at that little isolated chain, 
against which the Thermcs support themselves : no- 
body climbs it; it possesses neither great trees, nor 
naked rocks, nor points of view. And yet I ex- 
perienced a genuine pleasure there yesterday ; you 
follow the sharp backbone of the mountain that 
protrudes its vertebrae through its meagre coating 
of earth ; the poor but thickset turf, sunburnt and 
beaten by the wind, forms a carpet firmly sewn with 
tenacious threads ; the half-dried mosses, the knot- 
ty heaths strike their stubborn roots down between 
the clefts of the rock ; the stunted firs creep along, 
twisting their horizontal trunks. An aromatic and 
penetrating odor, concentrated and drawn forth by 
the heat, comes from all these mountain plants. 
You feel that they are engaged in an eternal strug- 
gle against a barren soil, a dry wind, and a shower 
of fiery rays, driven back upon themselves, hard- 
ened to all inclemencies, and determined to live. 
This expression is the soul of the landscape ; now, 
given so many varied expressions, you have so 
many different beauties, so many chords of pas- 
sion are stirred. The pleasure consists in seeing 
this soul. If you cannot distinguish it, or if it be 
wanting, a mountain will make upon you precisely 
the effect of a heap of pebbles." 

That is an attack on the tourists ; to-morrow I 



i68 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



will test your reasoning in the gorge of Eaux- 
Chaudes, and see if it is right. 






CHAPTER V. 



E A UX - CHA Un E S, 



I. 



On the north of the valley of Ossau is a cleft; 
it is the way to Eaux-Chaudes. An entire skirt of 
the mountain was torn out in order to open it ; 
the wind eddies through the hollows of this chilly 
pass ; the precipitous cut, of a dark iron-color, lifts 
its formidable mass as if to overwhelm the passer- 
by ; upon the rocky wall opposite are perched twisted 
trees in rows, and their thin, feathery tops wave 
strangely among the reddish projections. The high- 
way overhangs the Gave which eddies five hundred 
feet below. It is the stream which has hollowed out 
this prodigious groove, coming back again and again 



lyo 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. 



Book II. 



to the attack, and for whole centuries together ; 
two rows of huge rounded niches mark the lowering 
of its bed, and the ages of its toil ; the day seems to 




_ i '^u-^_5 



grow dark as you enter ; it is only a strip of sky that 
can be seen above the head. 

On the right, a range of giant cones rises into 
relief against the intense azure ; their bellies crowd 
one upon another and protrude in rounded masses; 
but their lofty peaks swing upward with a dash, with 




T!OAD TO r.Ai-x-riiAi'i)i:s. 



Chap. V. EA UX-CHA UDES. 1 73 

a orisrantic sort of flieht, towards the sublime dome 
whence streams the day. The light of August falls 
on the stony escarpments, upon the broken walls, 
where the rock, damasked and eng-raven, p-leams 
like an oriental cuirass. Leprous spots of moss are 
there incrusted ; stems of dried box dangle wretch- 
edly in the crannies ; but they are lost sight of in 
such heroic nakedness: the ruddy or blackened 
colossi display themselves in triumph in the splen- 
dor of the heavens. 

Between two channelled granite towers stretches 
the little village of Eaux-Chandes. But who, here, 
pays any attention to the village? All thought is 
taken up by the mountains. The eastern chain, 
abruptly cut off, drops perpendicularly like the wall 
of a citadel ; at the summit, a thousand feet above 
the highway, are esplanades expanding in forests 
and meadows, a crown green and moist, whence 
cascades ooze forth by the hundred. They wind 
broken and flaky along the breast of the mountain, 
like necklaces of pearls told off between the fingers, 
bathing the feet of the lustrous oaks, deluging the 
bowlders with their tempest, then at last spreading 
themselves out in long beds where the level rock 
lures them to sleep. 

The wall of granite falls away; at the east, an 
amphitheatre of forests suddenly opens up. On all 
sides, as far as the eye can reach, the mountains are 



174 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



loaded with wood to the very top ; several of them 
rise, in all their blackness, into the heart of the light, 
and their fringe of trees bristles against the pale 
sky. The charming cup of verdure rounds its gilded 
margin, then drops into hollows, overflowing with 
birch and oak, with tender, changeable hues that 




lend additional sweetness to the mists of morning. 
Not a hamlet is to be seen, no smoke, no culture; 
it is a wild and sunny nest, no doubt like to the 
valley that, on the finest day of the happiest spring- 
tide of the universe, received the first man. 

The highway makes a turn, and everything 
changes. The old troop of parched mountains 
reappears with a threatening air. One of them 



Chap. V. 



EA UX- CHA UDES. 



175 



in the west is crumbling, shattered as if by a 
Cyclopean hammer. It is strewn with squared blocks, 
dark vertebrae snatched from its spine ; the head is 
wanting, and the monstrous bones, crushed and in 
disorder, scattered to the brink of the Gave, an- 
nounce some ancient defeat. Another lying opposite, 
with a dreary air, extends its bald back a league away; 
in vain you go on or change your view : it is always 
there, always huge and melancholy. Its naked 
granite suffers neither tree nor spot of verdure ; a 
few patches of snow alone whiten the hollows in its 
sides, and its monotonous ridge shifts sadly its lines, 
blotting out half the sky with its bastions. 

Gabas is a hamlet in a barren plain. The torrent 
here rumbles underneath orlaciers and amone 
shattered tree-trunks ; it descends, lost at the bot- 
tom of the declivity, between colonnades of pines, 
the mute inhabitants of the gorge. The silence 
and constraint contrast with the desperate leaps of 
the snowy water. It is cold here, and everything 
is sad ; only, on the horizon may be seen the Pic 
du Midi in its splendor, lifting its two jagged 
piles of tawny gray into the serene light. 




176 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Booic II. 



II. 

In spite of myself I have been dreaming here 
of the antique gods, sons of Greece, and made 
in the Hkeness of their country. They were 
born in a similar country, and they spring to life 
again here in ourselves, with the sentiments which 
gave birth to them. 

I imagine idle and curious herdsmen, of fresh 
and infantile souls, not yet possessed by the au- 
thority of a neighboring civilization and an estab- 
lished dogma, but active, hardy, and poets by 
nature. The)^ dream — and of M'hat, if not of the 
huge beings that all day long besiege their eyes ? 
How fantastical are those jagged heads, those 
bruised and heaped-up bodies, those twisted 
shoulders ! What unknown monsters, what mel- 
anchol)', misshapen race, alien to humanity ! By 
what dread travail has the earth brought them 
forth from her womb, and what contests have 
their blasted heads sustained amidst clouds and 
thunderbolts ! They still threaten to-day ; the 
eagles and the vultures are alone welcome to sound 
their depths. They love not man ; their bowlders 
lie in wait to roll upon him, so soon as he shall 
violate their solitudes. With a shiver they hurl 
upon his harvests a tide of rocks ; they have but to 



Chap. V. EAUX-CHAUDES. 179 

gather up a storm in order to drown him Hke an 
ant. How changeable is their face, but always to 
be dreaded ! What lightnings their summits hurl 
among the creeping fogs ! That flash causes fear 
like the eye of some tyrant god, seen for a mo- 
ment, then hid again. There are mountains that 
weep, amidst their gloomy bogs, and their tears 
trickle down their aged cheeks with a hollow sob, 
betwixt pines that rustle and whisper sorrowfully, 
as if pitying that eternal mourning. Others, seat- 
ed in a ring, bathe their feet in lakes the color of 
steel, and which no wind ever ruffles ; they are 
happy in such calm, and gaze into the virgin wave 
at their silver helmet. How mysterious are they at 
night, and what evil thoughts do they turn over in 
wmter, when wrapped in their shroud of snow ! 
But in the broad day and in summer, with what buoy- 
ancy and how glorified rises their forehead to the 
sublimest heights of air, into pure and radiant 
realms, into light, to their own native country. All 
scarred and monstrous though they be, they are 
still the gods of the earth, and they have aspired to 
be gods of heaven. 

But lo, where comes a second race, lovely and 
almost human, the choir of the nymphs, fleeting 
and melting creatures who are daughters of those 
misshapen colossuses. How comes it that they 
have begotten them ? No one knows ; the birth 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. 



of the gods, full of mystery, eludes mortal ey^. 
Some say that their first pearl has been seen to 
ooze from an herb, or from a cranny beneath the 
glaciers, in the uplands. But they have dwelt long 
in the paternal bowels ; some, burning ones, keep 
the memory of that inner furnace whose bubbling 
they have looked upon, and which, from time to 
time, still makes the ground to tremble ; others, icy 
cold, have crossed the eternal winter that whitens 
the summits. At the outset, all retain the fire of 
their race ; dishevelled, screaming, raving, they 
bruise themselves against the rocks, they cleave 
the valleys, sweep away trees, struggle and are 
sullied. What transport is here — maidenly and 
bacchanal ! But, once they have reached the 
smooth beds which the rounded rock spreads out 
for them, they smile, they hush themselves in 
sleep, or they sport. Their deep eyes of liquid 
emerald have their flashes. Their bodies bow and 
rise again ; in the vapors of morning, in sudden 
falls, their water swells, soft and satiny as a 
woman's breast. With what tenderness, what 
delicately wild quiverings they caress the bended 
flowers, the shoots of fragrant thyme that thrive 
between two rocky edges on the bank ! Then 
with sudden caprice they plunge deep down in a 
cavern, and scream and writhe as mad and way- 
ward as any child. What happiness in spreading 



Chap. V. EAUX-CHAUDES. i8i 

out thus to the sun ! What strange gayety, or 
what divine tranquilhty, in that transparent wave as 
it laughs or eddies ! Neither the eye nor the 
diamond has that changeful clearness, those burn- 
ing and glaucous reflections, those inward trem- 
blings of pleasure or of anxiety ; women though 
they are, they are indeed goddesses. Without 
more than human might, would they have availed, 
with their soft wave, to wear these hard cliffs, to 
bore through these impregnable barriers? And by 
what secret virtue do they know, they, so inno- 
cent of aspect, how at one time to torture and slay 
him who drinks, and, again, to heal the infirm and 
the invalid ? They hate the one and love the 
other, and, like their fathers, they bestow life and 
death at their pleasure. 

Such is the poetry of the pagan world, of the 
childhood of mankind ; thus each one framed it for 
himself, in the dawn of things, at the awaking of 
imagination and conscience, long before the age 
when reflection set up defined worship and studied 
dogmas. Among the dreams that blossomed in 
the morning of the world, I love only those of 
Ionia. 

Hereupon Paul became vexed, and called me a 
classicist : " You are all like that ! You take one 
step forward into an idea, and then stop short like 
cowards. Come now ; there are a hundred Olym- 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



puses in Egypt, in Iceland, in India. Each one of 
those landscapes is an aspect of Nature ; each of 
those eods is one of the forms in which man has 

o 

expressed his idea of Nature. Admire the god 
by the same standard as the landscape ; the onion 
of Egypt is worth as much as Olympian Jove." 

That is too strong, yet I take you at your word ; 
you shall stand by your assertion, and extract a god 
from your onion. 




" This very instant ; but first transport yourself 
to Egypt, before the coming of warriors and 
priests, upon the river-ooze, among savages half 
naked in the mire, half drowned in water, half burn- 
ed by the sun. What a sight is that of this great 
black shore steaming under the heat, where croco- 



Chap. V. EAUX-CHAUDES. 183 



diles and writhing fish lash the waters of the pools ! 
Myriads of mosquitoes buzz in the air ; large- 
leaved plants lift their tangled mass ; the earth fer- 
ments and teems with life ; the brain grows giddy 
with the heavy exhalations, and man, made rest- 
less, shudders as he feels in the air and coursing 
through his limbs the generative virtue by whose 
means everything multiplies and grows green. A 
year ago nothing grew on this ooze : what a 
change ! There springs from it a tall, straight 
reed, with shining thongs, the stem, swollen with 
juices, striking deep into the slime ; with every day 
it expands and changes : green at the outset, it 
reddens like the sun behind the mists. Unceas- 
ingly does this child of the ooze suck therefrom 
juices and force ; the earth broods over it and com- 
mits to it its every virtue. See it now, how, of its 
own accord, it lifts itself half-way, and at last wholly, 
and warms in the sun its scaly belly filled with an 
acrid blood ; blood that boils, and so exuberant that 
it bursts the triple skin and oozes through the 
wound ! What a strange life ! and by what miracle 
is it that the point of the summit becomes a plume 
and a parasol ? Those who first gathered it wept, 
as though some poison had burned their eyes ; but 
in the winter-time, when fish fails, it rejoices him who 
meets it. Those enormous heaped-up globes, are 
they not the hundred breasts of the great nurse, 



1 84 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book IL 

mother Earth ? New ones reappear as often as 
the waters retire ; there is some divine force hid- 
den beneath those scales. May it never fail to re- 
turn ! The crocodile is god, because it devours us ; 
the ichneumon is god, because it saves us ; the 
onion is god, because it nourishes us." 

The onion is god, and Paul is its prophet ; you 
shall have some this evening, with white sauce. 
But, my dear friend, you frighten me; you blot out 
with one stroke three thousand years of history. 
You put on one level races of artists and races 
of visionaries, savage tribes and civilized nations. 
I like the crocodile and the onion, but I like Jupi- 
ter and Diana better. The Greeks have invented 
the arts and sciences ; the Egyptians have only 
left some heaps of ashlar-work. A block of granite 
is not as good as either Aristotle or Homer. They 
are everywhere the first who, through clear reason- 
ing, have reached a conception of justice and have 
made science. Then, however evil our time may 
be, it surpasses many another. Your grotesque 
and oriental hallucinations are beautiful, at a dis- 
tance however ; I am willing to contemplate them, 
but not to submit to them. Now-a-days we have 
no poetry, be it so ; but we appreciate the poetry of 
others. If our museum is poor, we have the mu- 
seums of all ages and all nations. Do )'ou know 
what I get from your theories ? Three times a 



Chap. V. 



EA UX-CHA UDES. 



185 



month they will save me four francs ; I shall find 
fairy-land in them, and shall have no further occa- 
sion for going to the opera. 





CHAPTER VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 

I. 

On the eig-hth of Aug-ust, at nine o'clock in the 
morning-, the piercing- note of a flageolet was 
to be heard at half a leag-ue's distance from Eaux- 
Bonnes, and the bathers set out for Aas. The 
way there is by a narrow road cut in the Monta- 
gneVerte, and overhung with lavender and bunches 
of wild flowers. We entered upon a street six 
feet in width : it is the main street. Scarlet-capped 
children, wondering at their own magnificence, 
stood bolt upright in the doorways and looked on 
us in siU;nt admiration. The public square, at the 
side of the lavatory, is as large as a small room; 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



187 



it is here that dances take place. Two hogsheads 
had been set up, two planks upon the hogsheads, 
two chairs upon the planks, and on the chairs two 




musicians, the whole surmounted by two splendid 
blue umbrellas which did service as parasols ; for 
the sky was brazen, and there was not a tree on 
the square. 

The whole formed an exceedingly pretty and 
original picture. Under the roof of the lavatory, a 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



group of old women leaned against the pillars in 
talk ; a crystal stream gushed forth and ran down 
the slated gutter ; three small children stood mo- 
tionless, with wide-open, questioning eyes. The 
young men were at exercise in the pathway, pla)-- 
ing at base. Above the esplanade, on points of 
rock forming shelves, the women looked down on 
the dance, in holiday costume ; a great scarlet 
hood, a body embroidered in silver, or in silk with 
violet flowers ; a yellow, long-fringed shawl ; a 
black petticoat hanging in folds, close to the 
figure, and white woollen gaiters. These strong 
colors, the lavished red, the reflexes of the silk 
under a dazzling light, were delightful. About 
the two hogsheads was wheeling, with a supple, 
measured movement, a sort of roundelay, to an 
odd and monotonous air terminated by a shrill false 
note of startling effect. A youth in woollen vest 
and breeches led the band ; the young girls moved 
gravely, without talking or laughing ; their little 
sisters at the end of the file took great pains in 
practising the step, and the line of purple capulcts 
slowly waved like a crown of peonies. Occasion- 
ally the leader of the dance gave a sudden bound 
with a savage cry, and recalled to our mind that 
we were in the land of bears, in the very heart of 
the mountains. 

Paul was there under his umbrella, wagging his 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



189 



great beard with a look of delight. Had he been 
able, he would have followed the dance. 




" Was I rio-ht? Is there a single thine here out 
of harmony with the rest, and which the sun, the 
climate, the soil, do not make suitable ? These 
people are poets. They must have been in love 
with the light to have invented these splendid cos- 
tumes. Never would a northern sun have inspired 
this feast of color ; their costume harmonizes with 
their sky. In Flanders, they would look like 
mountebanks ; here they are as beautiful as their 
country. You no longer notice the ugly features, 
the sunburnt faces, the thick, knotty hands that 
yesterday offended you ; the sun enlivens the bril- 
liancy of the dresses, and in that golden splendor 
all ugliness disappears. I have seen people who 



I90 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

laughed at the music ; ' the air 13 monotonous,' 
they say, 'contrary to ail rule, it has no ending; 
those notes are false.' At Paris, that may be ; but 
here, no. Have you remarked that wild and 
original expression ? How it suits the landscape ! 
That air could have sprung up nowhere but among 
the mountains. The frou-frou of the tambourine is 
as the lanofuid voice of the wind Avhen it coasts 
the narrow valleys ; the shrill tone of the flageolet 
is the whistling of the breeze when it is heard on 
the naked summits ; that final note is the cry of 
a hawk in the depths of the air ; the mountain 
sounds too are recognizable, hardly transformed by 
the rhythm of the song. And then the dance is as 
primitive, as natural, as suitable to the country as 
the music : they go wheeling about hand in hand. 
What could be more simple ! It is thus that the 
children do at their play. The step is supple 
and slow ; that is as the mountaineer walks ; you 
know by experience that you must not be in too 
much haste if you would climb, and that here the 
stiff strides of a town-bred man will bring him 
to the ground. That leap, that seems to you so 
strange, is one of their habits, hence one of their 
pleasures. To make up a festival they have chosen 
what they found agreeable among the things to 
which their eyes, ears, and legs were habituateci. 
Is not this festival then the most national, the 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 191 



truest, the most harmonious, and hence the most 
beautiful that can be imagined ? " 



II. 

Laruns is a market-town. Instead of a hog-s- 
head there were four times two hogsheads 
and as many musicians, all playing together, 
and each one a different portion of the same air. 
This clatter excepted and a few magnificent pairs 
of velvet breeches, the festival was the same as 
that at Aas. What we go there to see is the 
procession. 

At first everybody attends vespers ; the women 
in the sombre nave of the church, the men in a 
gallery, the small boys in a second gallery higher 
up, under the eye of a frowning schoolmaster. 
The young girls, kneeling close to the gratings of 
' the choir, repeated Ave Marias, to which the deep 
voice of the congregation responded ; their clear, 
metallic voices formed a pretty contrast to the hol- 
low buzzing of the resounding responses. Some 
wolfish-looking old mountaineers, from thirty miles 
away, made the blackened wood of the balustrade 
creak as they clumsily bent the knee. A twilight 
fell on the dense crowd, and made yet darker the 
expression of those energetic countenances. One 
might have fancied himself in the sixteenth 



192 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



century. Meanwhile the httle bells chattered joy- 
ously with their shrill voices, and made all possible 




noise, like a roost full of fowls at the top of the 
white tower. 

At the end of an hour, the procession arrancred 
itself very artistically and went forth. The first 
part of the cortei^'e was aniusiuL;- : two rows of 
little scapes-races in red vests, their hands clasped 
over their bellies, in order to keep their book in 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 193 



place, tried to give themselves an air of compunc- 
tion, and looked at each other out of the corners 
of their eyes in a manner truly comical. This 
band of masquerading monkeys was led by a jolly 
stout priest, whose folded bands, cuffs, and hang- 
ing laces fluttered and waved like wings. Then 
a sorry beadle, in a soiled douanier s coat ; then 
a fine maire in uniform, with his sword at his side ; 
then two long seminarians, two plump little priests, 
a banner of the Virgin, finally all the douaniers and 
all the gendarmes of the country ; in short, all the 
grandeurs, all the splendors, all the actors of civil- 
ization. 

The Barbarians however were more beautiful : 
it was the procession of men and women who, 
taper in hand, filed by during three-quarters of an 
hour. I saw in it true Henry IV. faces, with the 
severe and intelligent expression, the proud and 
serious bearing, the large features of his contempo- 
raries. Especially there were some old herdsmen 
in russet great-coats of hairy felt, their brows not 
wrinkled but furrowed, bronzed and burned by the 
sun, their glances savage as those of a wild beast, 
worthy of having lived in the time of Charlemagne. 
Surely those who defied Roland were not more 
savage in physiognomy. Finally appeared five or 
six old women, the like of whom I could never 
have imagined : a hooded cloak of white woollen 
13 



194 



THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. 



Book II. 



stuff enfolded them like a bed-blanket ; only the 
swarthy countenance was visible, their eyes deep 
and fierce like the she-wolfs, their mumbling lips, 
that seemed to be muttering spells. They called 
to mind involuntarily the witches in Macbeth ; the 
mind was transported a hundred leagues away 
from cities, into barren gorges, beneath lone gla- 
ciers where the herdsmen pass whole months amidst 
the snows of winter, near to the growling bears, 
without hearing one human word, with no other 
companions than the gaunt peaks and the dreary 
fir-trees. They have borrowed from solitude 
something of its aspect. 







(I ' 



7#' 



'% 




THE I'EAK OF THE GER, 

FUOM 

THIi VILLAGE OK AAS. 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 197 

III. 

The Ossalais, however, have ordinarily a gentle, 
intelligent, and somewhat sad physiognomy. The 
soil is too poor to impart to their countenance that 
expression of impatient vivacity and lively spirit that 
the wine of the south and the easy life give to their 
neighbors of Languedoc. Three-score leagues in 
a carriage prove that the soil moulds the type. 
A little farther up, in the Cantal, a country of chest- 
nut-trees, where the people fill themselves with a 
hearty nourishment, you will see countenances red 
with slueeish blood and set with a thick beard, 
fleshy, heavy-limbed bodies, massive machines for 
labor. Here the men are thin and pale ; their 
bones project, and their large features are weather- 
beaten like those of their mountains. An endless 
struggle against the soil has stunted the women as 
w^ell as the plants ; it has left in their eyes a vague 
expression of melancholy and reflection. Thus the 
incessant impressions of body and soul in the long 
run modify body and soul ; the race moulds the 
individual, the country moulds the race. A de- 
eree of heat in the air and of inclination in the 
ground is the first cause of our faculties and of our 
passions. 

Disinterestedness is not a mountain virtue. In 
a poor country, the first want is want of money. 



198 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

The dispute is to know whether they shall consider 
strangers as a prey or a harvest ; both opinions arc 
true : we are a prey which every year yields a 
harvest. Here is an incident, trifling, but capable 
of showing the dexterity and the ardor with which 
they will skin a flint. 

One day Paul told his servant to sew another 
button upon his trousers. An hour after she 
brings in the trousers, and, with an undecided, 
anxious air, as if fearing the effect of her demand : 
" It is a sou," said she. I will explain later how 
great a sum the sou is in this place. 

Paul draws out a sou in silence and gives it to 
her. Jeannette retires on tip-toe as far as the door, 
thinks better of it, returns, takes up the trousers 
and shows the button : " Ah ! that is a fine button ! 
(A pause.) I did not find that in my box. 
(Another and a longer pause.) I bought that at 
the grocer's ; it costs a sou ! " She draws herself 
up anxiously ; the proprietor of the trousers, still 
without speaking, gives a second sou. 

It is clear that she has struck upon a mine of 
sous. Jeannette goes out, and a moment after re- 
opens the door. She has resolved on her course, 
and in a shrill, piercing voice, with admirable volu- 
bility : "I had no thread; I had to buy some 
thread; I used a good deal of thread ; good thread, 
too. The button won't come off. I sewed it on 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 199 



fast: it cost a sou." Paul pushes across the table 
the third sou. 

Two hours later, Jeannette, who has been pon- 
dering on the matter, reappears. She prepares 
breakfast with the greatest possible care ; she takes 
pains to wipe the least spot, she lowers her voice, 
she walks noiselessly, she is charming in her little 
attentions ; then she says, putting forth all sorts of 
obsequious graces : " I ought not to lose anything, 
you would not want me to lose anything ; the cloth 
was harsh, I broke the point of my needle ; I did 
not know it a while ago, I have just noticed it ; it 
cost a sou." 

Paul drew out the fourth sou, saying with his seri- 
ous air : "Cheer up, Jeannette; you will keep a 
good house, my child; happy the husband who 
shall ' lead you, pure and blushing, beneath the 
roof of his ancestors ; you may go and brush the 
trousers." 

Beggars swarm. I have never met a child be- 
tween the ages of four and fifteen years who did not 
ask alms of me ; all the inhabitants follow this 
trade. No one is ashamed of it. You look at any 
one of the Httle girls, scarcely able to walk, seated 
at their threshold busy in eating an apple : they 
come stumbling- alonor with their hands stretched 

o o 

out towards you. You find in a valley a young 
herdsman with his cows ; he comes up and asks 



THE VALLE V OF OSSA U. 



Book II. 



3'ou for a trifle. A tall girl goes by with a fagot 
on her head ; she stops and asks a trifle of you. 




A peasant is at work on the road. " I am making 
a good road for you," says he ; " give me just a 
trifle." A band of scapegraces are playing at the 
end of a promenade ; as soon as they see you, they 
take each other by the hand, begin the dance of the 




country, and end by collecting the usual trifle. 
And so it is throughout the Pyrenees. 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 




you 



And they are merchants as well as beggars. 
You rarely pass along the street without being ac- 
costed by a guide who offers you his services and 
begs you to give him the 
preference. If you are sea- 
ted on the hillside, three or 
four children come dropping 
out of the sky, bringing you 
butterflies, stones, curious 
plants, bouquets of flowers. 
If you go near a dairy, the 
proprietor comes out with 
a porringer of milk, and will sell it to 

in spite of yourself One day ^ 

as I was looking at a young bull, 
the drover proposed to me to 
buy it. 

This greediness is not offen- 
sive. I once went up the brook 
of la Soude, behind Eaux- 
Bonnes : it is a sort of tumble- 
down staircase which for three leagues winds 
among the box in a parched ravine. You have 
to clamber over pointed rocks, jump from point to 
point, balance yourself along narrow ledges, climb 
zigzag up the scarped slopes covered with rolling 
stones. The foot-path is enough to frighten the 
goats. You bruise your feet on it, and at every step 




202 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

run the risk of getting a sprain. I met there some 
young women and girls of twenty, all barefooted, 
carrying to the village, one a block of marble in her 
basket, another three sacks of charcoal fastened 
together, another five or six heavy planks ; the 
way is nine miles long, under a mid-day sun ; and 
nine miles for the home journey: for this they are 
paid ten sous. 

Like the beggars and the merchants, they are 
very crafty and very polite. Poverty forces men to 
calculate and to please ; they take off their cap as 
soon as you speak to them and smile complaisantly ; 
their manners are never brutal or artless. The 
proverb says very truly: "False and courteous 
Bearnais." You recall to mind the caressing man- 
ners and the perfect skill of their Henry IV. ; he 
knew how to play on everybody and offend nobody. 
In this respect, as in many others, he was a true 
Bearnais. With the aid of necessity, I have seen 
them trump up geological disquisitions. In the 
middle of July there was a sort of earthquake ; a 
report was spread that an old wall had fallen down ; 
in truth the windows had shaken as if a great wagon 
were passing by. Immediately half of the bathers 
quitted their lodgings : a hundred and fifty persons 
fled from Cauterets in two days ; travellers in their 
night-shirts ran to the stable to fasten on their car- 
riages, and to light themselves carried away the 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



203 



hotel lantern. The peasants shook their heads 
compassionately and said to me : " You see, sir, 
they are going from the frying-pan into the fire ; if 
there is an earthquake, the plain will open, and 
they will fall into the crevices, whereas here the 
mountain is solid, and would keep them safe as a 
house." 

That same Jeannette who already holds so honor- 
able place in my history, shall furnish an example 
of the polite caution and the over-scrupulous reserve 
in which they wrap themselves when they are afraid 







AN AMATEUR SKETCH. 



that they shall be compromised. The master had 
drawn the neighboring church, and wanted to judge 
of his work after the manner of Moliere. 

" Do you recognize that, Jeanette." 

"Ah ! monsieur, did you do that? " 

" What have I copied here ? " 

"Ah ! monsieur, it is very beautiful." 



204 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



" But still, tell me what it is there." 

She takes the paper, turns it over and over again, 
looks at the artist with a dazed air and says 
nothincr. 

O 

" Is it a mill or a church?" 

" Yes, indeed." 

" Is it the church of Laruns .^ " 

"Ah ! it's very beautiful." 

You could never get her beyond that. 

IV, 

We had a wish to know if the fathers were equal 
to the sons; and we have found the history of 
Beam in a fine red folio, composed in the year 
1640, by Master Pierre de Marca, a Bearnais, 
counsellor of the king in his state and privy coun- 
cils, and president in his court of the parliament of 
Navarre ; the whole ornamented with a maenificent 
engraving representing the conquest of the Golden 
Fleece. Pierre de Marca makes several important 
discoveries in his book, among others, that of two 
kings of Navarre, personages of the ninth century, 
until then unknown : Semeno Enneconis, and En- 
neco Semenonis. 

Although filled with respect for Semeno Enne- 
conis and Enneco Semenonis, we are desperately 
wearied with the recital of the suits, the robberies 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 205 



and the genealogies of all the illustrious unknown. 
Paul maintains that learned history is only good 
for learned asses ; a thousand dates do not make 
a sino-le idea. The celebrated historian of the 
Swiss, Jean de Muller, once wanted to rehearse 
the list of all the Swiss nobility, and forgot the 
fifty-first descendant of some undiscoverable vis- 
count ; he became ill with grief and shame ; it is as 
if a general should wish to know how many but- 
tons each of his soldiers had on his coat. 

We have found that these good mountaineers 
have ever loved gain and booty. It is so natural 
to wish to live, and live well too ! Above all is it 
pleasant to live at the expense of others ! Time 
was when, in Scotland, every shipwrecked vessel 
belonged to the coast-side people ; the wrecked 
ships came to them like herrings in the season, a 
hereditary and legitimate harvest ; they felt robbed 
if one of the crew attempted to keep his coat. It 
is so here with strangers. The rear-guard of 
Charlemagne, under Roland, perished here ; the 
mountaineers rolled down upon it an avalanche of 
stone ; then they divided the stuffs, the silver, 
mules and baggage, and each one betook himself 
to his den. In the like manner they treated a sec- 
ond army sent by Louis le Debonnaire. I fancy 
they regarded these passages as a blessing from 
heaven, a special gift from divine Providence. 



2o6 



THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



Fine cuirasses, new lances, necklaces, well-lined 
coats, it was a perfect magazine of gold, iron, and 




THE DEATH OF KOLAND. 



wool. Very likely the wives ran to meet them, 
blessing the good husband who had been the most 
thouofhtful of the welfare of his little family, and 
brought back the greatest quantity of provisions. 
This artlessness in respect of theft still exists in 
Calabria. In Napoleon's time, a prefect was scold- 
ing a well-to-do peasant who was behind-hand 
with his contributions ; the peasant replied, with 
all the openness of an upright man : " Faith, 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



207 



your Excellency, it's not my fault. For fifteen 
days now have I taken my carabine every evening, 
and have posted myself along the highway to 




see if no one would pass. Never a man goes 
by ; but I give you my word I'll go back there until 
I fiave scraped together the ducats I owe you." 

Add to this custom of thievino- an extreme 
bravery ! I believe the country is the cause of 
one as well as the other ; extreme poverty re- 
moves timidity as well as scruples ; they are 
leeches on the body of others, but then they are 
equally prodigal of their own ; they can resist as 
well as take an advantage ; if they willingly take 
another's goods, they guard their own yet more 
willingly. Liberty has thriven here from the 
earliest times, crabbed and savage, home-born and 
tough like a stem of their own boxwood. Hear 
the tone of the primitive charter : 



2o8 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

" These are the tribunals of Beam, in which 
mention is made of the fact that, in old times, in 
Beam they had no lord, and in those days they 
heard the praises of a certain knight. They 
sought him out, and made him their lord during 
one year ; and after that, he was unwilling to main- 
tain amonof them their tribunals and customs. 
And the court of Beam then came together at 
Pau, and they required of him to maintain among 
them their tribunals and customs. And he would 
not, and thereupon they killed him in full court." 

In like manner the land of Ossau preserved its 
privileges, even against its viscount. Every rob- 
ber who brought his booty into the valley was safe 
there, and might the next day present himself be- 
fore the viscount with impunity : it was only when 
the latter, or his wife in his absence, came into the 
valley to dispense justice that he was judged. 
This scarcely ever happened, and the land of 
Ossau was "the retreat of all the evil livers and 
marauders " of the country round. 

V. 

These rude manners, filled with chances and 
dangers, produced as many heroes as brigands, 
r^irst comes the Count Gaston, one of the leaders 
of the first crusade ; he was, like all the great 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



209 



men of this country, an enterprising and a ready- 
minded man, a man of experience and one of the 
vanguard. At Jerusalem he went ahead to recon- 
noitre, and constructed the machines for the siege ; 
he was held to be one of the wisest in counsel, 
and was the first to plant upon the walls the cows 
of Beam. No one struck a heavier blow or calcu- 
lated more exactly, and no one was fonder of calcu- 
lating and striking. On his return, he fought 
against his neighbors, twice besieged Saragossa, 
and once Bayonne, and, along with king Alphonso, 
won two great battles against the Moors. Ah, 
what a time was that, for minds and muscles fram- 
ed for adventure ! No need then to seek for war ; 
it was found everywhere, and profit along with it. 
Such a fine career as those cavalcades had among 
the marvellous cities of the Asiatic Saracens and of 
the Spanish Moors ! What a quantity of skulls to 
cleave, of gold to bring home ! It was thus that 
the overflow of force and imagination was discharg- 
ed, that at the 
same time em- 
ployment for J)% 
the body and "T^ . '^ ^'. 





■\^^ 



'^:\ - 









safety for the 
soul is found. 
Death then 

was no foolish affair of a random shot or clumsy 

14 



2IO THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 

bullet, In the midst of a well-ordered manoeuvre. 
Then one encountered all the hazards, the unfore- 
seen, of knight-errantry ; the senses were all 
awake ; the arms wrought and the body was a sol- 
dier ; Gaston was killed as a private horseman in 
ambuscade, with the bishop of Huesca. 

That which pleases me in history is the minor 
circumstances, the details of character, A mere 
scrap of a phrase indicates a revolution in the facul- 
ties and passions ; great events are contained in it 
at their ease, as in their cause. Here in the life of 
Gaston is one of those words. The day that Jeru- 
salem was taken, quarter had been granted to a 
large number of Mussulmans. "But the next day, 
the rest, displeased at seeing that there were any 
infidels alive, mounted upon the roofs of the temple, 
and massacred and mangled all the Saracens, both 
men and women." * There was neither reasoning 
nor deliberation ; at the si^ht of a Mussulman's 
dress, their blood mounted in wrath to their face, 
and they sprang forward, like lions or butchers, 
struck them down and dismembered them. Lope 
de Vega, an antique Christian, a severe Spaniard, 
renewed this savage and fanatical sentiment : 

* Tlie following fact is from the Sic^j^c of Aiitioch : " Many of our enemies 
(lied, and some of the prisoners were led before the gate of tlie city, and there 
their heads were cut off, in order to discourage those who remained in the 
city." 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 211 

Garcia Tcllo. Father, why have you not brought a 
Moor for me to see him ! 

TJic elder Tello ; {s/iozving him the prisoners.) Well, 
Garcia, those are Moors. 

Gareia. What ? Those are Moors ? They look like 
men. 

Old Tello. And indeed they are men. 

Garcia. They do not deserve to be. 

Old Tello. And why ? 

Garcia. Because they believe neither in God nor in 
the Virgin Mary ; the sight of them makes my blood 
boil. Father. 

Old Tello. Are you afraid of them ? 

Garcia. No more than you, Father. {Going tozvard 
the prisoners.) Dogs, I would tear you in pieces with 
my hands ; you shall know what it is to be a Christian. 
{He darts npon them and pursues them.') 

Old Tello. Ah, the good little fellow ! Gracious 
Heaven ! He is fine as coral. 

Tello. Mendo, see that he does them no harm. 

Old Tello. Let him kill one or two / so do they teach 
a falcon to kill when he is young. 

In fact, they are falcons or vultures. In the song 
of Roland; when the doughty knights ask from Tur- 
pin the absolution of their sins, the archbishop for 
penance recommends them to strike well. 

But at the same time they have the mind and the 
soul of children. " Deep are the wells, and the 
valleys dark, the rocks black, the defiles marvellous." 
That is their whole description of the Pyrenees ; 
they feel and speak in a hemp, A child, questioned 
about Paris, which he had just seen for the first time. 



THE VALLE Y OF OSS A U. 



Book II. 



replied: "There are a great many streets, and 
carriages everywhere, and great houses, and in two 
squares two tall columns." The poet of old times 
is like the child ; he does not know how to analyze 
his impressions. Like him, he loves the marvellous, 
and takes delight in tales where all the proportions 




are gigantic. In the battle of Roncevaux every- 
thing is aggrandized beyond measure. The wor- 
thies kill the entire vanguard of the Saracens, a 
hundred thousand men, and, afterward, the army 
of King Marsile, thirty battalions, each composed c>f 
ten thousand men. Roland winds his horn, and the 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



213 



sound travels away thirty leagues to Charlemagne, 
and is echoed by his sixty thousand hautboys. 
What visions such words awakened in those inex- 
perienced brains ! Then all at once the bow was un- 
bent ; the wounded Roland calls to mind " men of 
his lineage, of gentle France, of Charlemagne his 
lord who supports him, and cannot help but weep 
and sigh for them." At the conclusion of the car- 
nage with which they filled Jerusalem, the crusaders, 
weeping and chanting, went barefoot to the holy 
sepulchre. Later, when a number of the barons 
wanted to leave the crusade of Constantinople, the 
others went to meet them, and entreated them on 
their knees ; then all embraced each other, bursting 
into sobs. Robust children : that expresses the 
whole truth ; they killed and howled as if they were 
beasts of prey, then when once the fury was calmed, 
they were all tears and tenderness, like a child who 
flings himself upon his brother's neck, or who is 
eoinof to make his first communion. 



VI. 

I RETURN to my Bearnais ; they were the most 
active and circumspect of the band. 

The counts of Beam fought and treated with all 
the world ; they hover between the patronage of 
France, Spain and England, and are subject to no 



214 THE VALLEY OE OSSAU. Book II. 

one ; they pass from one to the other and alwa3's to 
their own advantage, " drawn," says Matthew 
Paris, " by pounds sterHng, or crowns, of which 
they had both great need and great abundance." 
They are always first where fighting is to be done 
or money to be gained ; they go to be killed in 




Spain or to demand gold at Poitiers. They are 
calculators and adventurers ; from imagination and 
courage lovers of warfare, — lovers of cfain from 
necessity and reflection. 

And in this manner their Henry won the crown of 
France, thinking much of his interests and little of his 
life, and always poor. After the camp at La Fere, 
when he was already recognized as king, he wrote : 
" I have only a pretence of a horse on which to 
fight, and no entire armor that I can put on ; my 
shirts are in tatters, my pourpoints out at the 
elbows. My saucepan is many a time upset, and 
now these two days 1 have dined and supped with 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



215 



one and another, for my purveyors say that they 
see no way of furnishing" my table any longer, espe- 
cially since they have received no money for six 
months." 

A month later, at Fontaine-Fran9aise, he charg- 
ed an army at the head of eight 
hundred cavaliers, and fired 
off his pistol by way of sport, 
like a soldier. But at the same 
time this father of his people 
treated the people in the fol- 
lowing manner : " The prisons 
of Normandy were full of pris- 
oners for the payment of the 
duty on salt. They languished 
tRere in such wise that as many 
as six-score of their corpses 

were brought forth at one time. The parliament 
of Rouen besought His Majesty to have pity on 
his people ; but the king had been told that a great 
revenue was coming from that tax, and said that he 
was willing that it should be raised, and seemed 
that he would wish to turn the rest into mockery." 

A good fellow, no doubt, but a devil of a good 
fellow ; we French are fond of such ; they are likable, 
but sometimes deserve hanging. These had pru- 
dence into the bargain, and were made to be offi- 
cers of fortune. 




2i6 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



" Gassion," says Tallemant des Reaux, " was the 
fourth of five sons. When he had finished his 
studies, he was sent to the war ; but otherwise he 
was but poorly furnished. For his sole horse his 
father gave him a docked pony, that might have 
been thirty years old ; its like was not in all Beam, 
and it was called, as a rarity, Gassioii s Bob-tail. 
Apparently the young man was scarcely better pro- 
vided with money than with horses. This pretty 
courser left him four or five leagues from Pau, but 
that did not prevent him from going into Savoy, 
where he entered the troops of the duke, for there 
was then no war in France. But the late king 
having broken with this prince, all Frenchmen had 
orders to quit his service ; this forced our adven- 
turer to return to the service of the king. 

"At the taking of the pass of Suze, he did so 
well, although only a simple cavalier, that he was 
made cornet ; but the company in which he was 
cornet was broken, and he came to Paris and 
asked for the mantle of a musketeer. He was re- 
fused on account of his religion. Out of spite, 
with several other Frenchmen he went over to Ger- 
many, and, although in his troop there were men 
of higher position than he, knowing how to talk 
in Latin, he was everywhere received for the chief 
of the band. One of these made the advances for 
a company of light-horse that they were going to 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



217 



raise in France for the king of Sweden ; he was 
Heutenant of it ; his captain was killed, and now he 
is himself a captain. He soon made himself 
known as a man of spirit, so that he obtained from 
the king of Sweden the privilege of receiving or- 
ders only from His Majesty in person ; this was on 
condition of marching al- 
ways at the head of the 
army and of filling in a 
measure the position of 
forlorn hope. While thus 
employed, he received a 
frightful pistol-shot in the 
right side, the wound of 
which has since opened 
several times, now to the 
peril of his life, and now^ 
the opening answering as 
a crisis in other illnesses." 

He was a thorough soldier, and above all a lover 
of valor. A rebel peasant, at Avranches, fought 
admirably before a barricade, and killed the Mar- 
quis de Courtaumer, whom he took for Gassion. 
Gassion had search made everywhere for this gal- 
lant man, in order that he might be pardoned and to 
put him in his regiment. The Chancellor Seguier 
took the affair like a lawyer ; some time after, having 
seized the peasant, he had him broken on the wheel. 




2i8 THE VALLEY OF OSS AC/. Book II. 

He treated civil affairs just as he did military 
ones. He sent word to a merchant in Paris who 
had become bankrupt, owing him ten thousand 
livres, " that it would not be possible for him to let 
remain in the world a man who was carrying away 
his property." He was paid. 

" He led men into war admirably. I have heard 
related an action of his, very bold and at the same 
time very sensible ; before he was major-general, 
he asked several noblemen if they wished to join 
his party. They went with him. After having 
q-one about the whole mornino- without findinor 
anything, he said to them : ' We are too strong ; 
the parties all fly before us. Let us leave here 
our horsemen, and go away alone.' The vol- 
unteers followed him ; they went on until they 
were near to Saint- Omer. Just then two squa- 
drons of cavalry suddenly appeared and cut off 
their way ; for Saint- Omer was behind our people. 
'Messieurs,' said he to them, 'we must pass or 
die. Put }'ourselves all abreast ; ride full speed at 
them and don't fire. The first squadron will be 
afraid, when they see that you mean to fire only 
into their teeth ; they will rein back and overthrow 
the others.' It happened just as he had said : 
our noblemen, well mounted, forced the two 
sc^uadrons and saved themselves, almost to a man. 

"Another, also very daring; which, however, 



Chap. VI. 



THE INHABITANTS. 



219 



seems to me a little rash. Having received notice 
that the Croats were leading away the horses of 
the Prince d'Enrichemont, he wanted to charge 
upon them, accompanied by only a few of his 
horsemen, and, as there happened to be a great 
ditch between him and 
the enemy, he swam 
across it on his horse, 
without looking to see 
if any one followed 
him, so that he en- 
countered the enemy 
alone, killed five of 
them, put the rest to 
flight, and returned 
with three of our men 
whom they had taken, 
and who perhaps 
helped him in the 
struo-Qrle. He led back all the horses." 

The quondam light-horseman reappeared be- 
neath the general's uniform. Thus he always 
remained the comrade of his soldiers. When any 
one had offended the least of his cavalrymen, he 
took the man with him and had satisfaction given 
in one way or another. 

" La Vieuxville, since superintendent, intrusted 
to him his eldest son to learn the trade of war. 




THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. 



Book II. 



The young man treated Gassion magnificently at 
the army. ' Vou are trifling with yourself, Mon- 
sieur le Marquis,' said he: 'of what use are all 
these dainties ? 'S death ! we only want good 
bread, good wine and good forage.' He thought 
of his horse as much as of himself." 




MLLE. DE SHCl'K 



He was a poor courtier and troubled himself little 
about ceremonies. One day he went to the com- 
munion before the prince palatine, and the follow- 
ing Sunday, having found his place taken, he would 
never allow that a nobleman should give it up, and 
went to seek a place somewhere else. Nevertheless 
he was scarcely courtly towards ladies, and on this 
point not at all worthy of Henry IV. 

" At court, many young ladies who were pleased 
\\'\\\\ him, were wheedling him, and said : * Of a 



Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 



truth, monsieur, you have performed the finest pos- 
sible deeds.' — ' That's a matter of course,' said he. 
When one said : ' I should be orlad to have a hus- 
band like M. de Gassion.' — ' I don't doubt it,' an- 
swered he. 

" He said of Mile, de Segur, who was old and ugly, 
' I like that young woman ; she looks like a Croat.' 

" When Bougis, his lieutenant de gendarmes, 
stayed too long in Paris in the winter-time, he 
wrote to him : ' You are amusing yourself with 
those women, and you will die like a dog ; here 
you would find fine chances. What the devil do 
you find in the way of pleasure in going to 
court and making love ! That is pretty business in 
comparison with the pleasure of taking a quarter ! ' " 

His brother, Bergere, seems to have had little 
taste for this pleasure. Gassion, then a col- 
onel, on one occasion ordered him to charo-e at 
the head of fifty cavaliers, and declared that if 
he gave way he would run him through the body 
with his sword. An admirable method for forming- 
men ! Bergere found his account in it, and after- 
wards went into action like any other man. 

The two adventurers had a thoroughly military 
ending. Their brother the president, for econo- 
my's sake, had Bergere embalmed by a valet de 
chambre who mangled him shockingly. As for 
Gassion, he awaited burial durino- three months. 



222 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. 



" The president, tired of paying for the funeral 
hangings, had them returned, and others put up 
which cost him ten sols less a day. At last he had 
a small vault constructed between two gates in 
the old cemetery ; he had them interred one day 
when there was a sermon without any solemnity 
whatever, and so that no one could say that he had 
gone there on their account." Three out of four 
heroes have been similarly buried, like dogs. 

The last of the d'Artagnans, those heroic hun- 
ters after paying adventures, was (according to an 
inscription, said to be false) born at Pau, rue du 
Tran, No. 6. A drummer in 1792, he Avas in 18 10 
prince royal of Sweden. He had made his way, 
and along it he had lost his prejudices. Like 
Henry IV., he found that a kingdom was worth 
quite as much as a mass ; he too made the peril- 
ous leap, but in a contrary direction, and laid 
aside his religion like an old cassock ; a question 
of old clothes : a brand-new royal mantle was 
worth far more. 




BOOK III. 

THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 




CHAPTER I. 



ON THE IVA Y TO LUZ. 



I. 



The carriage leaves Eaux-Bonnes at dawn. The 
sun is scarcely yet risen, and is still hidden by the 
mountains. Pale rays begin to color the mosses 
on the western declivity. These mosses, bathed 
in dew, seem as if awakening under the first caress 
of the day. Rosy hues, of an inexpressible softness, 
rest on the summits, then steal down along the 
slopes. One could never have believed that these 
gaunt old creatures were capable of an expression 
so timid and so tender. The light broadens, heaven 
expands, the air is filled with joy and life. A bald 
peak in the midst of the rest, and darker than they, 
stands out in an aureole of flame. All at once, 
15 



226 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



between two serrate points, like a dazzling arrow, 
streams the first ray of the sun. 



II. 



Beyond Pau stretches a smiling country, golden 
with harvests, amongst which the Gave winds its 




blue folds between white and pebbly beaches. On 
the right, far away in a veil of luminous mist, the 
Pyrenees lift their jagged tops, and the naked points 
of their black rocks. Their flanks, furrowed by the 
torrents of winter, are deeply scored and, as it were, 
turned up with an iron rake. The picturesque 
country and the great mountains are seen to disclose 
themselves ; the fences of the fields are of small 
rounded stones, in whose fissures abound wa\-ing 
grasses, prctt\- heaths, tufts of )-(;llow sedum, and 



Chap. I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ. 227 

above all tiny pink geraniums, that shine in the sun 
like clusters of rubies. You are quite ready to seek 
for nymphs ; we come across six in an orchard, not 
actually dancing, but dirty. They are eating bread 
and cheese, squatted on their heels, and stare at us 
with half-open mouth. 



III. 



CoARRAZE Still preserves a tower and gateway, 
the remains of a castle. This castle has its legend, 
which Froissart recounts in a style so flowing and 
agreeable, so minute and expressive, that I cannot 
refrain from quoting it at length. 

The Lord of Coarraze had a dispute with a clerk, 
and the clerk left him with threats. "About three 
months after, when the knight least thought of it, 
and was sleeping in his bed with his lady, in his 
casde of Coarraze, there came invisible messeneers, 
who made such a noise, knocking about everything 
they met with in the castle, as if they were deter- 
mined to destroy all within it : and they gave such 
loud raps at the door of the chamber of the knight, 
that the lady was exceedingly frightened. The 
knight heard it all, but did not say a word, as he 
would not have it appear that he was alarmed, for 
he was a man of sufficient courage for any ad- 
venture. These noises and tumults continued, in 



228 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



different parts of the castle, for a considerable time, 
and then ceased. On the morrow, all the servants 
of the household assembled, and went to their 
lord, and said, ' My lord, did you not hear what we 
all heard this niMit ? ' The Lord de Coarraze dis- 
sembled, and replied, ' What is it you have heard ? ' 




They then related to him all the noises and rioting 
they had heard, and that the plates in the kitchen 
had been broken. He began to laugh, and said, 
* It was nothing, that they had dreamed it, or that it 
had been the wind.' ' In the name of God,' added 
the lady, ' I well heard it.' 



Chap. I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ. 229 

" On the following night the noises and rioting 
were renewed, but much louder than before, and 
there were such blows struck against the door and 
windows of the chamber of the knight, that it 
seemed they would break them down. The knight 
could no longer desist from leaping out of his bed, 
and calling out, ' Who is it that at this hour thus 
knocks at my chamber door ? ' He was instantly 
answered, ' It is I.' ' And who sends thee hither ? ' 
asked the knight. ' The clerk of Catalonia, whom 
thou hast much wronged ; for thou hast deprived 
him of the rights of his benefice ; I will, therefore, 
never leave thee quiet, until thou hast rendered 
him a just account, with which he shall be content- 
ed.' — ' What art thou called,' said the knight, 
'who art so good a messenger?' — 'My name is 
Orthon.' — ■'■ Orthon,' said the knight, ' serving a 
clerk will not be of much advantage to thee; for 
if thou believest him he will give thee great 
trouble : I beg thou wilt therefore leave him and 
serve me, and I shall think myself obliged to thee.' 
Orthon was ready with his answer, for he had 
taken a liking to the knight, and said, ' Do you 
wish it ? ' — ' Yes,' replied the knight; ' but no harm 
must be done to any one within these walls.'—' Oh, 
no,' answered Orthon ; ' I have no power to do ill 
to any one, only to awaken thee and disturb thy 
rest, or that of other persons.' — ' Do what I tell 



230 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 

thee,' added the knight, ' we shall well agree, and 
leave this wicked priest, for he is a worthless fel- 
low, and serve me.' — 'Well,' replied Orthon, 'since 
thou wilt have it so, I consent.' 

"Orthon took such an affection to the Lord de 
Coarraze, that he came often to see him in the 
night-time, and when he found him sleeping, he 
pulled his pillow from under his head, or made 
Qfreat noises at the door or windows ; so that when 
the knight was awakened, he said, ' Orthon, let me 
sleep.' — 'I will not,' replied he, 'until I have told 
thee some news.' The knight's lady was so much 
frightened, the hairs of her head stood on end, and 
she hid herself under the bed-clothes. ' Well,' 
said the knight, ' and what news hast thou brought 
me ? ' Orthon replied, ' I am come from England, 
Hungary, or some other place, which I left yester- 
day, and such and such things have happened.' 
Thus did the Lord de Coarraze know by means of 
Orthon all things that were passing in different 
parts of the world ; and this connection continued 
for five years ; but he could not keep it to himself, 
and disco\-ered it to the Count de Foix, in the 
manner I will tell you. The first year, the Lord 
de Coarraze came to the Count de Foix, at Orthes, 
or elsewhere, and told him, ' My lord, such an 
event has happened in England, in Scotland, 
Germany, or some other country,' and the Count 



Chap. I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ. ■ 231 

de Foix, who found all this intelligence prove 
true, marvelled greatly how he- could have ac- 
quired such early information, and entreated him 
so earnestly, that the Lord de Coarraze told him 
the means by which he had acquired his intelli- 
eence, and the manner of its communication. 
When the Count de Foix heard this, he was much 
pleased, and said, ' Lord de Coarraze, nourish the 
love of your intelligencer. I wish I had such a 
messenger; he costs you nothing, and you are 
truly informed of everything that passes in the 
world.' — ' My lord,' replied the knight, ' I will do 
so.' The Lord de Coarraze was served by Orthon 
for a long time. I am ignorant if Orthon had more 
than one master ; but two or three times every 
week he visited the knight and told him all the 
news of the countries he had frequented, which he 
wrote immediately to the Count de Foix, who was 
much delighted therewith, as there is not a lord in 
the world more eager after news from foreign parts 
than he is. Once, when the Lord de Coarraze 
was in conversation on this subject with the Count 
de Foix, the Count said, ' Lord de Coarraze, have 
you never yet seen your messenger ? '■ — ' No, by 
my faith, never, nor have I ever pressed him on 
this matter.' — ' I wonder at that,' replied the count, 
' for had he been so much attached to me, I should 
have beeped of him to have shown himself in his 



232 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



own proper form ; and I entreat you will do so, that 
you may tell how he is made, and what he is like. 
You have said that he speaks Gascon as well as 
you or I do.' — ' By my faith,' said the Lord de Coar- 
raze, ' he converses just as well and as properly, and, 
since you request it, I Avill do all I can to see him.' 
" It fell out when the Lord de Coarraze, as usual, 
was in bed with his lady (who was now accustom- 
ed to hear Orthon without being frightened), 
Orthon arrived and shook the pillow of the knight, 
who was asleep. On waking, he asked who was 
there. Orthon replied, ' It is I.' — ' And where 
dost thou come from ? '■ — ' I come from Prague, in 
Bohemia.'- — ' How far is it hence ? ' — ' Sixty days' 
journey,' replied Orthon. ' And hast thou return- 
ed thence in so short a time ? ' — ' Yes, as may God 
help me : I travel as fast as the wind, or faster.' — 
' What, hast thou got wings ? ' — ' Oh, no.' — 
'How, then, canst thou fly so fast?' — 'That is 
no business of yours.' — ' No ! ' said the knight. 
' I should like exceedingly to see what form thou 
hast, and how thou art made.' — ' That does not 
concern you to know,' replied Orthon; * be satis- 
fied that you hear me, and that I bring you intelli- 
gence you may depend on.' — 'By God,' said the 
Lord de Coarraze, ' I should love thee better if I had 
seen thee.' — ' Well,' replied Orthon, ' since you 
have such a desire, the first thing you shall see to- 



Chap. I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ. 233 

morrow morning, in quitting your bed, shall be my- 
self.' — 'I am satisfied,' said the knight; 'you may 
now depart ; I give thee thy liberty for this night.' 
" When morning came, the knight arose, but 
his lady was so much frightened she pretended to 
be sick, and said she would not leave her bed the 
whole day. The Lord de Coarraze willed it other- 
wise. ' Sir,' said she, ' if I do get up, I shall see 
Orthon ; and, if it please God, I would neither 
see nor meet him.' — ' Well,' replied the knight, 
* I am determined to see him ; ' and leaping out of 
his bed, he seated himself on the bedstead, thinking 
he should see Orthon in his own shape ; but he 
saw nothing that could induce him to say he had 
seen him. When the ensuing night arrived, and 
the Lord de Coarraze was in bed, Orthon came and 
beean to talk in his usual manner! ' Go,' said the 
knight ; ' thou art a liar. Thou oughtest to have 
shown thyself to me this morning, and hast not 
done so.' — ' No ! ' replied Orthon ; ' but I have.' 
— 'I say, no.' — 'And did you see nothing at all 
when you leaped out of bed ? ' The Lord de Co- 
arraze was silent, and, having considered awhile, 
said, ' Yes ; when sitting on my bedside, and 
thinking of thee, I saw two straws which were 
turning and playing together on the floor.' — ' That 
was myself,' replied Orthon, 'for I had taken that 
form.' The Lord de Coarraze said, ' That will not 



234 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 





satisfy me ; I beg of thee to 
assume some other shape, so 
that I may see thee and know 
thee.' Orthon answered, 'You 
ask so much that you will ruin 
me and force me away from 
you, for your requests are too 
great.' — ' You shall not quit 
me,' said the Lord de Coar- 
raze ; ' if I had once seen thee, 
I should not ao^ain wish it.' — 
'Well,' replied Orthon, 'you 
shall see me to-morrow, if 
you pay attention to the first 
thing you observe when you 
leave your chamber.' — ' I am 
contented,' said the knight ; 
' now go thy ways, for I want 
to sleep.' Orthon departed. 
On the morrow, about the 
hour of eight, the knight had 
risen and was dressed ; on 
leaving his apartment, he went 
to a window which looked into 
the court of the castle. Cast- 
ing his eyes about, the first 
thing he observed was an im- 
mensely large sow, but she 



Chap. I. 



ON THE WAY TO LUZ. 



235 



was so poor, she seemed only skin and bone, with 
long hanging ears all spotted, and a sharp-pointed, 
lean snout. The Lord de Coarraze was disgusted at 
such a sight, and, calling to his servants, said, ' Let 
the dogs loose quickly, for I will have that sow 

killed and devour- ^^_ 

ed.' The servants "'C^r^ 

hastened to open 
the kennel, and to 
set the hounds on 
the sow, who utter- 
ed a loud cry and 
looked up at the 
Lord de Coarraze, 
leaning on the bal- 
cony of his window, 
and was never seen 
afterwards ; for she vanished, and no one ever 
knew what became of her. 

" The knight returned quite pensive to his cham- 
ber, for he then recollected what Orthon had told 
him, and said : ' I believe I have seen my messen- 
ger Orthon, and repent having set my hounds on 
him, for perhaps I may never see him more : he 
frequently told me, that if I ever angered him, I 
should lose him.' He kept his word ; for never did 
he return to the hotel de Coarraze, and the knight 
died the following year." 




236 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



This Orthon, the famihar spirits, queen Mab, 
are the poor Httle popular gods, children of the 
pool and the oak, engendered by the melancholy 
and awe-struck reveries of the spinning maiden and 
the peasant. A great state religion then over- 
shadowed all thoughts ; doctrine ready-made was 
imposed upon them ; men could no longer, as in 
Greece or Scandinavia, build the great poem 
which suited their manners and mind. They re- 
ceived it from above, and repeated the litany with 
docility, yet not very well understanding it. Their 
invention produced only legends of saints or 
churchyard superstitions. Since they could not 
reach God, they struck out for themselves goblins, 
hermits, and gnomes, and by these simple and fan- 
tastic figures they expressed their rustic life or 
their vague terrors. This Orthon, who storms at 
the door in the night and breaks the dishes, is he 
anything more than the night-mare of a half-wak- 
ened man, anxiously listening to the rustling of the 
wind that fumbles at the doors, and the sudden 
noises of the night magnified by silence ! The 
child in his bed suffers similar fears when he covers 
eyes and ears that he may not see the strange 
shadow of the wardrobe, or hear the stifled cries of 
the thatch on the roof The two straws that play 
convulsively on the floor, twined together like 
twins, and shine with mysterious brilliancy in the 



Chap. I. 



ON THE WA Y TO LUZ. 



237 



pale sunlight, leave a vague uneasiness in the disor- 
dered brain. In this way is born the race of famil- 
iars and fairies, nimble creatures, swift travellers, 




as capricious and sudden as a dream, who amuse 
themselves maliciously in sticking together the 
manes of the horses, or in souring the milk, yet 
sometimes become tender and domesticated, at- 
tached like the cricket to its hearthstone, and are 
the penates of the country and the farm, in- 
visible and powerful as gods, quaint and odd as 



n 



238 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



children. Thus all the legends preserve and set 
off vanished ways and sentiments, like to those 
mineral forces which, deep down in the heart of the 
mountains, transform charcoal and stones into mar- 
ble and the diamond. 




Chap. I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ. 241 



IV. 

We no sooner reach Lestelle, than we are as- 
sured on all sides that we must visit the chapel. 
We pass between rows of shops full of rosaries, 
basins for holy-water, medals, small crucifixes, 
through a cross-fire of offers, exhortations and cries. 
After w^hich we are free to admire the edifice, a 
liberty which we are careful not to abuse. On the 
portal, indeed, there is a pretty enough virgin in 
the style of the seventeenth century, four evange- 
lists in marble, and in the interior several tolerable 
pictures ; but the blue dome starred with gold 
looks like a bonbonniere, the walls are disgraced 
with engravings from the rue Saint-Jacques, the 
altar is loaded with gewgaws. The gilded den is 
pretentious and gloomy ; for such a beautiful coun- 
try the good God seems but ill harbored. 

The poor little chapel nestles close to a huge 
mountain wooded with crowded green thickets, 
which stretches out superbly in the light, and 
warms its belly in the sun. The highway is 
abruptly checked, makes a curve and crosses the 
Gave. The pretty bridge of a single arch rests 
its feet upon the naked rock and trails its ivy dra- 
pery in the blue-green eddies of the stream. We 
ascend beautiful wooded hills w^here the cows are 

grazing, and whose rounded slopes dip gently 
16 



24: 



THE VALLE Y OF L UZ. 



Book III. 



down to the river's brink. We are nearing Saint 
Pe, on the confines of Bigorre and Beam. 

Saint-Pe contains a curious Roman church with 
sculptured doorway. A luminous dust was danc- 
ing in its warm shadows ; the eyes penetrated with 
pleasure into the depths of the background ; its re- 
liefs seemed to swim in a living blackness. All at 
once comes a clatter of cracking whips, of rolling 
and grinding wheels, of hoofs that strike fire from 
the pavement ; then the endless hedge of white 
walls running away to the right and the left, fleck- 
ed with glaring lights ; then the sudden opening of 
the heavens and the triumph of the sun, whose fur- 
nace blazes in the remotest depths of the air. 



V. 



Near Lourdes, the hills became bald and the 




landscape sad. Lourdes is only a mass of dull, 




)R(,K <ji' i-n;i;i;F:Fn iii. 



Chap. I. ON THE WA V TO LUZ. 245 

lead-colored roofs, heaped up below the highway. 
The two small towers of the fort outline their slen- 
der forms against the sky. A single enormous, 
blackish rock lifts its back, corroded by mosses, 
above the enclosure of a slight wall that winds to 
shut it in, and suggests an elephant in a boarded 
shed. The neighborhood of the mountains dwarfs 
all human constructions. 

Heavy clouds rose in the sky, and the dull hori- 
zon became encased between two rows of moun- 
tains, gaunt, patched with scant brushwood, cleft in 
ravines ; a pale light fell on the mutilated summits 
and into the gray crevices. Bands of beggars, in 
relays, hooked themselves on to the carriage with 
hoarse inarticulate noises, with idiotic air, wry 
necks, and deformed bodies ; the projecting sinews 
swelled the wrinkled skin, and, peeping through 
the rags and tatters, was seen the flesh, in color 
like a burned brick. 

We entered the gorge of Pierrefitte. The 
clouds had spread, and darkened the whole 
heaven ; the wind swept along in sudden gusts 
and whipped the dust into whirlwinds. The car- 
riage rolled on between two immense walls of dark 
rocks, slashed and notched as if by the axe of an 
infuriate giant ; rugged furrows, seamed with yawn- 
ing gashes, reddish wounds, torn and crossed by 
pallid wounds, scar upon scar ; the perpendicular 



246 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Booic III. 

flank still bleeds from multiplied blows. Half-de- 
tached, bluish masses hung in sharp points over 
our heads ; a thousand feet higher up, layers of 
blocks leaned forward, overhanging the way. At 
a prodigious height, the black, battlemented sum- 
mits pierced the vapors, while, with every step 
forward, it seemed as if the narrow passage were 
coming to an end. The darkness was growing, 
and, under that livid light with its threatening re- 
flexes, it seemed that those beetlinor monsters were 
shaking and would soon engulf everything. The 
trees, beaten against the rock, were bending and 
twisting. The wind complained with a long-drawn 
piercing moan, and beneath its mournful sound, 
the hoarse rumbling of the Gave was heard as it 
dashed madly against the rocks it could not sub- 
due, and moaned sadly like a stricken soul that 
rebels against the torments it is powerless to 
escape. 

The rain came and covered all objects with its 
blinding veil. An hour later, the drained clouds 
were creeping along half way up the height ; the 
dripping rocks shone through a dark varnish, like 
blocks of polished mahogany. Turbid water went 
boiling down the swollen cascades ; the depths of 
the gorge were still darkened by the storm ; but a 
tender light played over the wet summits, like a 
smile bathed in tears. The gorge opened up ; the 





»ilMir2# 



M||^5^a\ 



HEAVY CLOUDS ROSE IN THE SKY. 



Chap. I. 



ON THE IVA Y TO LUZ. 



249 



arches of the marble bridges sprang Hghtly into the 
Hmpid air, and, sheeted in Hght, Luz was seen seat- 
ed among sparkling meadows and fields of millet in 
full bloom. 





OLD HOUSE OF THlL TEMPLARS AT LUZ. 



CHAPTER II. 



LUZ. 



I. 



Luz is a little city, thoroug-hly rustic and agree- 
able. Streams of water run down the narrow, 
flinty streets; the gray houses press together for 
the sake of oraininsf a little shade. The morning 
sees the arrival of flocks of sheep, of asses laden 
with wood, of grunting and undisciplined hogs, and 
bare-footed peasant girls, knitting as they walk 
alongside of their carts. Luz is in a spot where 
four valleys come together. Men and beasts disap- 
pear on the market-place ; red umbrellas are fixed 
in the ground. The women seat themselves along- 
side their wares ; around them their red-cheeked 
brats are nibbling their bread, and frisking- like so 



many mice ; provisions are sold, stuffs are bought. 
At noon the streets are deserted ; here and there 
in the shadow of a doorway may be discerned the 
fio-ure of an old woman sittinor, but no sound is 
heard save the gentle murmur of the streams along 
their stony bed. 

The faces here are pretty : the children are a 
pleasure to look upon, before toil and the sun 
have spoiled their features. They amble merrily 
through the dust, and turn toward the passer their 
bright round faces, their speaking eyes, with slight 
and abrupt movements. When the girls, with their 
red petticoats tucked up, and in capulets of thick 
red stuff, approach to ask alms of you, you see 
under the crude color the pure oval of a clear-cut, 
proud countenance, a soft, almost pale hue, and the 
sweet look of two great tranquil eyes. 



IL 

The church is cool and solitary ; it once belong- 
ed to the Templars. These monk-soldiers obtained 
a foothold in the most out-of-the-way corners 
of Europe. The tower is square as a fortress ; the 
enclosing wall has batdements like a fortified city. 
The dark old door-way would be easily defended. 
Upon its arch, which is very low, may be distin- 
euished a half-obliterated Christ, and two fantastic, 



252 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



rudely colored birds. As you enter, a small un- 
covered tomb serves as font, and you are shown a 
low door through wjiich passed the accursed race of 
the bigots.'^ Its first aspect is singular, but has noth- 
ing unpleasant about it. A good woman in a red 
capulet, knitting in hand, was praying near a confes- 
sional of badly planed boards, under an old brown 
gallery of turned wood. Poverty and antiquity are 
never ugly, and this expression of religious care 
seemed to suit well with the ruins and souvenirs 
of the middle ao^es scattered about us. 

But deeply rooted in the people is a certain inde- 
finable love of the ridiculous and absurd which suc- 
ceeds in spoiling everything ; in this poor church, 
tracery, from which the gilding is worn away, crosses 
a vault of scoured azure with tarnished stars, flames, 
roses and little cherubs with wings for cravats. A 
brownish pink angel, suspended by one foot, flies 
forward, bearing in its hand a golden crown. In 
the opposite aisle may be seen the face of the 
sun, with puffy cheeks, semicircular eyebrows, and 
looking as sapient as in an almanac. The altar is 
loaded with a profusion of tarnished gilding, sallow 
angels, Avith simple and piteous faces like those of 
children who ha\'e eaten too much dinner. All 
this shows that their huts are very dreary, naked 

* Name applied aiiioni; tlic Pyrenees to a jienple alTIicteil witli Cretinism. 
— Tkansi.atou. 



and dull. A people that has just emerged from the 
dirt is apt to love gilding. The most insipid sweet- 
meat is delicious to one who has long eaten nothing 
but roots and dry bread. 



III. 



Luz was formerly the capital of these valleys, 
which formed together a sort of republic ; each 
commune deliberated upon its own private interests ; 
four or five villages formed a vie, and the deputies 
from every four vies assembled at Luz. 

The list of the assessments was, from time im- 
memorial, made upon bits of wood called totchoux, 
that is to say, sticks. Each community had its 
totchou, upon which the secretary cut with his 
knife Roman ciphers, the value of which was known 
only to himself In 1784 the intendant of Auch, 
who knew nothing of this custom, ordered of the 
government officials to bring to him the ancient 
registers ; the official came, followed by two cart- 
loads of totchoux. 

Poor country, free country. The estates of 
Bigorre were composed of three chambers which de- 
liberated separately ; that of the clergy, that of the 
nobility, and the third estate, made up of consuls 
or principal officers of the communes, and deputies 



256 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



from the valleys. In these assemblies the taxes 
were apportioned, and all important matters were 
discussed. A valley is a natural fortified city, de- 
fended ao-ainst the outside world and stimulatino- 
association. The enemy could be arrested on his 
way, and crushed beneath the rocks ; in winter, the 
torrents and the snow shut him off from all en- 
trance. Could knights in armor pursue the herds- 
man into his bogs ? What could they have taken 
as prisoners, except a few half-starved goats? 
The daring climbers, hunters of the bear and wolf, 
would willingly have played at this game, sure of 
winning at it warm clothes, arms and horses. It is 
thus that independence has lasted in Switzerland. 

Free country, poor country. I have already re- 
marked that in the valley of Ossau. The plains 
are mere defiles between the feet of two chains. 
Cultivation climbs the slope, wherever it is not too 
steep. If a morsel of earth exists between two 
rocks, it is put to seed. Man gets from the desert as 
much as he can wrest from it : so terraces of fields 
and harvests mottle the declivity with green strips 
and yellow squares. Barns and stables sprinkle it 
with white patches ; it is streaked by a long gray- 
ish footpath. But this robe, torn by jutting rocks as 
it is, stops short half-way up, and the summit is 
clothed only with barren moss. 

The harvest is gathered in July, without horses, 



Chap. II. 



LUZ. 



257 



of course, or carts. On these slopes, man alone 




can perform the service of a horse : the sheaves 
are enclosed in great pieces of cloth and fastened 
with cords ; the reaper takes the enormous bun- 
dle upon his head, and ascends with naked feet 
among the sharp-pointed stalks and stones, with- 
out ever making a false step. 

You find here ordinances reducing by half the 
number of men-at-arms required of the country, 
founded upon the proportion of harvests destroyed 
each year by hail and frost. Several times, during 
the religious wars, the country became a desert. 
I^ 1575' Montluc declares "that it is now so poor 
that the dwellers hereabouts are forced to quit 

their houses and take to begging." In 1592, the 
17 



258 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



people of Comming-e having- devastated the 
country, "the peasants of Bigorre abandoned the 
culture of the land for want of cattle, and the 
greater part of them took the road into Spain." 
It is not a hundred years since that, in all the 
country, there, were known to exist but three hats 
and two pairs of shoes. To this very day, the 
mountaineers are forced to renew with every year 
their sloping fields, wasted b}^ the rains of winter. 
" They burn, for light, bits of resinous pine, and 
scarcely ever taste meat." 

What misery is contained in those few words! 
Yet how deep must be the wretchedness that can 
break the tie that binds man to his native soil ! A 
threadbare text from history, a phrase of passionless 
statistics, contain within their limits years of suffer- 
ing, myriads of deaths, flight, separations, degrada- 
tion. Of a truth, there is too much ill in the world. 
With every century man removes a bramble and 
a stone that had helped to obstruct the way over 
which he advances ; but what signifies a bramble 
or a stone? There remain, and always will remain, 
more than enough to lacerate and kill him. Besides, 
new flints are falling into the way, new thorns are 
springing up. Prosperity increases his sensibility : 
an equal pain is inflicted by a less evil ; the body 
may be better shielded, but the soul is more disor- 
dered. The benefits of the Revolution, the progress 



Chap. II. 



LUZ. 



261 



of industry, the discoveries of science, have given 
us equaHty, the comforts of hfe, Hberty of thought, 
but at the same time a malevolent envy, the rage 
for success, impatience of the present, necessity of 
luxury, instability of government, and all the suffer- 
ings of doubt and over-refinement. Is a citizen of 
the year 1872 any happier than one of the year 




1672 ? Less oppressed, better informed ; furnished 
with more comforts, all that is certain ; but I do 
not know if he is more cheerful. One thing alone 
increases — experience, and with it science, industry, 
power. In all else, we lose as much as we gain, 
and the surest progress lies in resignation. 



262 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



IV. 

This valley is everywhere refreshed and made 
fertile by running; water. On the road to Pierrefitte 
two swift streams prattle under the shade of the 
flowering hedges : no travelling companion could 
be gayer. On both sides, from every meadow, 
flow streamlets that cross each other, separate, 
come together, and finally together spring into the 
Gave. In this way the peasants water all their 
crops ; a field has five or six lines of streams which 
run hemmed in by beds of slate. The bounding 
troop tosses itself in the sunlight, like a madcap 
band of boys just let loose from school. The turf 
that they nourish is of an incomparable freshness 
and vigor; the herbage grows thick along the 
brink, bathes its feet in the water, or lies under the 
rush of the little waves, and its ribbons tremble in a 
pearly reflection under the ripples of silver. You 
cannot walk ten steps without stumbling upon a 
waterfall ; swollen and boiling cascades pour down 
upon great blocks of stone ; transparent sheets 
stretch themselves over the rocky shelves ; thread- 
like streaks of foam wind from the verge to the 
very valley ; springs ooze out alongside the hang- 
ing grasses and fall drop by drop ; on the right 
rolls the Gave, and drowns all these murmurs with 



Chap. II. 



LUZ. 



263 



its great monotonous voice. Tlie beautiful blue iris 
thrives along the marshy slopes ; woods and crops 
climb very high among the rocks. The valley 
smiles, encircled with verdure ; but on the horizon 
the embattled peaks, the serrate crests and black 
escarpments of the notched mountains rise into the 
blue sky, beneath their mantle of snow. 




Back of Luz is a bare, rounded eminence, called 
Saint-Pierre, crowned by a fragment of gray ruin, 
and commanding a view of the whole valley. 
When the sky has been overcast, I have spent here 
entire hours without a moment of weariness : be- 
neath its cloudy curtain the air is moderately 
warm. Sudden patches of sunlight stripe the 
Gave, or illumine the harvests hung midway on 
the mountain slope. The swallows, with shrill 
cries, wheel high in the creeping vapors ; the 



264 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



sound of the Gave comes up, softened by dis- 
tance into a harmony that is ahiiost aerial. The 
wind breathes, and dies away ; a troop of Httle 
flowers flutters at the passage of its wing ; the 
buttercups are drawn up in hne ; frail little pinks 
bury in the herbage their rosy-purple stars ; slen- 
der-stemmed grasses nod over the broad slaty 
patches ; the air is filled with the fragrance of 
thyme. Are they not happy, these solitary plants, 
watered by the dew, fanned by the breezes ? This 




height is a desert ; no one comes to tread them 
down ; they grow after their own sweet will, in 
clefts of the rock, by families, useless and free, 
flooded by the loveliest sunlight. And man, the 
slave of necessity, begs and calculates under pen- 
alty of his life ! Three children, all in rags, came 



Chap. II. 



LUZ. 



265 



upon the scene : " What are you looking for 
here } " 

" Butterflies." 

" What for ? " 

"To sell." 

The youngest had a sort of tumor on his fore- 
head. " Please, sir, a sou for the little one who 
is ill." 





CHAPTER III. 



SA IiVT-SA UVE UR. —BARE GES. 



I. 



Saint- Sauveur is a sloping street, both pretty 
and regular, bearing no trace of the extemporized 
hotel or of the scenery of an opera, and without 
either the rustic rouorhness of a villasfe or the tar- 
nished elegance of a city. The houses extend 
without monotony, their lines of windows encased 
in rough-hewn marble : on the right, they are set 
back to back against pointed rocks, from which 
water oozes ; on the left they overhang the Gave, 
which eddies at the bottom of the precipice. 

The bath-house is a square portico with a 
double row of columns, in style at once noble and 
simple ; the blue-gray of the marble, neither dull 
nor glaring, is pleasing to the eye. A terrace 



Chap. III. SAINT-SAUVEUR.— BAREGES. 



267 



planted with lindens projects over the Gave, and 
receives the cool breezes that rise from the torrent 
toward the heig-hts ; these lindens fill the air with a 




delicate and agreeable perfume. At the foot of the 
breast-high wall, the water of the spring shoots 
forth in a white jet and falls between the tree-tops 
into a depth unfathomable by the eye. 

At the end of the village, the winding paths of 
an English garden descend to the Gave ; you cross 
its dull blue waters on a frail wooden bridge, and 



268 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



mount ag-ain, skirting" a field of millet as far as the 
road to Scia. The side of this road plunges down 
six hundred feet, streaked with ravines ; at the bot- 
tom of the abyss, the Gave writhes in a rocky 
corridor that the noon-day sun scarce penetrates; 
the slope is so rapid that, in several places, the 
stream is invisible ; the precipice is so deep that 
the roar reaches the ear like a murmur. The tor- 
rent is lost to sio;ht under the cornices and boils in 
the caverns ; at every step it whitens with foam 
the smooth stone. Its restless ways, its mad 
leaps, its dark and livid reflexes, suggest a serpent 
wounded and covered with foam. But the strano^est 
spectacle of all is that of the wall of rocks opposite : 
the mountain has been cleft perpendicularly as if 
by an immense sword, and one would say that the 
first gash had been further mutilated by hands, 
weaker, yet still infuriate. From the summit down 
to the Gave, the rock is of the color of dead wood, 
stripped of the bark ; the prodigious tree-trunk, 
slit and jagged, seems mouldering away there 
through the centuries ; water oozes in the black- 
ened rents as in those of a worm-eaten block; it is 
yellowed by mosses such as vegetate in the rotten- 
ness of humid oaks. Its wounds have the brown 
and veined hues that one sees in the old scars of 
trees. It is in truth a petrified beam, a relic of 
Babel. 



The (reolocrists are a fortunate race ; they express 
all this, and many things besides, when they say 
that the rock is schistose. 

After going a league we found a bit of meadow, 
two or three cottages situated upon the gentle 
slope. The contrast is refreshing. And yet the 
pasturage is meagre, studded with barren rocks, 
surrounded with fallen debris ; if it were not for a 
rivulet of ice-cold water, the sun would scorch the 
herbao-e. Two children were sleeping under a 
walnut tree ; a goat that had climbed upon a rock 
was bleating plaintively and tremblingly; three 
or four hens, with curious and uneasy air, were 
scratching on the brink of a trench ; a woman was 
drawing water from the spring with a wooden 
porringer : such is the entire wealth of these poor 
households. Sometimes they have, four or five 
hundred feet higher up, a field of barley, so steep 
that the reaper must be fastened by a rope m 
order to harvest it. 

II. 
The Gave is strewn with small islands, which 
may be reached by jumping from one stone to an- 
other. These islands are beds of bluish rock 
spotted with pebbles of a staring white ; they are 
submero-ed in winter, and now there are trunks 
stripped of their bark still lying here and there 



2 70 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 

amone the bowlders. In some hollows are re- 
mains of ooze ; from these spring clusters of elms 
like a discharge of fireworks, and tufts of grass wave 
over the arid pebbles ; around the hushed water 
o-rows warm in the caverns. Meanwhile on two 
sides the mountain lifts its reddish wall, streaked 
with foam by the streamlets that wind down over 
the surface. Over all the flanks of the island the 
cascades rumble like thunder ; twenty ravines, one 
above another, engulf them in their chasms, and 
their roar comes from all sides like the din of a bat- 
tle. A mist flashes back and floats above all this 
storm ; it hangs among the trees and opposes its 
fine cool o-auze to the burning- of the sun. 



III. 

In clear weather I have often climbed the moun- 
tain before sunrise. During the night, the mist of 
the Gave, accumulated in the gorges, has filled 
them to overflowing ; under foot there is a sea of 
clouds, and overhead a dome of tender blue radiant 
with morning splendor ; everything else has dis- 
appeared ; nothing is to be seen but the luminou!^ 
azure of heaven and the dazzling satin of the 
clouds ; nature wears her vesture of purity. The 
eye glides with pleasure over the softly rounded 
forms of the aerial mass. In its bosom the black 



Chap. III. SAINT-SAUVEUR.— BAREGES. ■ ^IZ 



crests stand forth like promontories ; the mountain 
tops that it bathes rise Hke an archipelago of 
rocks; it buries itself in the jagged gulfs, and 
waves slowly around the peaks that it gains. The 
harshness of the bald crests heightens the grace 
of its ravishing whiteness. But it evaporates as it 
rises; already the landscapes of the depths appear 
under a transparent twilight ; the middle of the 
valley discovers itself. There remains of the 
floating sea only a white girdle, which trails along 
the declivities ; it becomes torn, and the shreds 
hang for a moment to the tops of the trees ; the 
last tufts take flight, and the Gave, struck by the 
sun o-litters around the mountain like a necklace 
of diamonds. 

IV. 

Paul and I have gone to Bareges ; the road is a 
continual ascent for two leagues. 

An alley of trees stretches between a brook and 
the Gave. The water leaps from every height ; here 
and there a crowd of htde mills is perched over 
the cascades; the declivities are sprinkled with 
them. It is amusing to see the little things nestled 
in the hollows of the colossal slopes. And yet their 
slated roofs smile and gleam among the foHage. 
There is nothing here that is not gracious and love- 
ly ; the banks of the Gave preserve their freshness 



2 74 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



under the burning sun ; the small streams scarcely 
leave between themselves and it a narrow band of 




green ; one is surrounded by running waters ; the 
shadow of the ashes and alders trembles in the fine 
grass ; the trees shoot up with a superb toss, in 
smooth columns, and only spread forth in branches 
at a height of forty feet. The dark water in the 
trench of slate grazes the orreen stems in its 
course ; it runs so swiftly that it seems to shiver. 
On the opposite side of the torrent, the poplars 
rise one above another on the verdant hill ; their 
palish leaves stand out against the pure blue of the 
sky ; they quiver and shine at the slightest wind. 



Chap. III. SAINT-SA UVE UR.— BAREGES. 



275 



Flowering brambles descend the length of the rock 




and reach the tips of the waves. Further off, the 
back of the mountain, loaded with brushwood, 
stretches out in a warm tint of dark blue. The 
distant woods sleep in this envelope of living 
moisture, and the earth impregnated by it seems 
to inhale with it force and pleasure. 



V. 



Soon the mountains grow bald, the trees disap- 
pear ; nothing upon the slopes but a poor brush- 



276 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 

wood : Bareges is seen. The landscape is hideous. 
The flank of the mountain is creviced with whitish 
sHdes ; the narrow and wasted plain disappears be- 
neath the coarse sand ; the poor herbage, dry and 
weighed down, fails at every step ; the earth is as 
if ripped open, and the slough, through its yawning 
wound, exposes the very entrails ; the beds of yel- 
lowish limestone are laid bare ; one walks on sands 
and trains of rounded pebbles ; the Gave itself half 
disappears under heaps of grayish stones, and with 
difficulty gets out of the desert it has made. This 
broken-up soil is as ugly as it is melancholy ; the 
debris are dirty and mean ; they date from yester- 
day ; you feel that the devastation begins anew 
with every year. Ruins, in order to be beautiful, 
must be either grand or blackened by time ; here, 
the stones have just been unearthed, they are still 
soaking in the mud ; two miry streamlets creep 
through the gullies : the place reminds one of an 
abandoned quarry. 

The town of Bareges is as ugly as its avenue ; 
melancholy houses, ill patched up ; at some dis- 
tance apart are long rows of booths and wooden 
huts, where handkerchiefs and poor ironmongery 
are sold. It is because the avalanche accumulates 
every winter in a mountain crevice on the left, and 
as it slides down carries off a side of the street ; 
these booths are a scar. The cold mists collect 



Chap. III. SAINT-SAUVEUR.— BAREGES. 



!77 



here, the wind penetrates 
and the Httle town is unin- 
habitable in winter. The 
orround is enshrouded un- 
der fifteen feet of snow ; 
all the inhabitants emi- 
grate; seven or eight moun- 
taineers are left here with 
provisions, to watch over 
the houses and the furni- 
ture. It often happens that 
these poor people cannot 
get as far as Luz, and re- 
main imprisoned during 
several weeks. 

The bathing estabhsh- 
ment is miserable, the com- 
partments are cellars with- 
out air or light ; there are 
only sixteen cabinets, all 
dilapidated. Invalids are 
often obliged to bathe at 
night. The three pools are 
fed by water which has just 
served for the bathing- 
tubs ; that for the poor re- 
ceives the water discharg- 
ed from the other two. 




2 78 



THE VALLE Y OF L UZ. 



Book III. 



These pools, piscines, are low and dark, a sort 
of stifling, under-ground prison. One must 
have pretty good health in order to be cured 
in them. 

The military hospital, banished to the north of 
the little town, is a melancholy plastered building-, 
whose windows are ranged in rows with military 




regularity. The invalids, wrapped in a gray cloak 
too large for them, climb one by one the naked 
slope, and seat themselves among the stones ; they 
bask whole hours in the sun, and look straight be- 
fore them with a resigned air. An invalid's days 
are so long ! These wasted faces resume an air of 



Chap. III. SAINT-SAUVEUR.— BAREGES. 279 



gayet)^ when a comrade passes ; they exchange a 
jest : even in a hospital, at Bareges even, a French- 
man remains a Frenchman. 

You meet poor old men on crutches, invalids, 
climbing the steep street. Those visages reddened 
by the inclement air, those pitiful bent or twisted 
limbs, the swollen or enfeebled flesh, the dull eyes, 
already dead, are painful to behold. x-\t their age, 
habituated to misery, they ought to feel only the 
suffering of the moment, not to trouble themselves 
about the past, and no longer to care for the 
future. You need to think that their torpid soul 
lives on like a machine. They are the ruins of man 
alongside those of the soil. 

The aspect of the west is still more sombre. 
An enormous mass of blackish and snowy peaks 
girdles the horizon. They are hung over the val- 
ley like an eternal threat. Those spines so rugged, 
so manifold, so angular, give to the eye the sensa- 
tion of an invincible hardness. There comes from 
them a cold wind, that drives heavy clouds towards 
Bareges ; nothing is gay but the two jewelled 
streamlets which border the street and prattle noisily 
over the blue pebbles. 




28o THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book 111. 



VI. 

In order to console ourselves here, we have read 
some charmino- letters ; here is one of them from 
the little Due du Maine, seven years old, whom 
Mme. de Maintenon had brought here to be cured. 
He wrote to his mother Mme. de Montespan, and 
the letter must certainly pass under the king's eyes. 
What a school of style was that court ! 

" I am ooino- off to write all the news of the 
house for thy diversion, my dear little heart, and I 
shall write far better when I shall think that it is 
for you, madame. Mme. de Maintenon spends all 
her time in spinning, and, if they would let her, she 
would also give up her nights to it, or to writing. 
She toils daily for my mind ; she has good hope 
of making something of it, and the darling too, 
who will do all he can to have some brains, for he 
is dying with the desire of pleasing the king and 
you. On the way here I read the history of Cse- 
sar, am at present reading that of Alexander, and 
shall soon commence that of Pompey. La Couture 
does not like to lend me Mme. de Maintenon's pet- 
ticoats, when I want to disguise myself as a girl. 
I have received the letter you write to the dear 
little darling ; I was delighted with it ; I will do 
what yoLi bid me, if only to please you, for I love 



Chap. III. SAINT-SAUVEUR.— BAREGES. 



you superlatively. I was, and am still, charmed 
with the little nod that the king gave me on leaving, 
but was very ill pleased that thou didst not seem to 
me sorry : thou wast beautiful as an angel." 

Could any one be more gracious, more flattering, 
insinuating or precocious ? To please was a neces- 
sity at that time, to please people of the world, 
quick-witted people. Never were men more agree- 
able.; because there was never greater need of be- 
ing agreeable. This youth, brought up among 
petticoats, took on from the beginning a woman's 
vivacity, her coquetry and smiles. You see that he 
gets upon their knees, receives and gives embraces, 
and is amusing ; there is no prettier trinket in the 
salon. 

Mme. de Maintenon, devout, circumspect and 
politic, also writes, but with the clearness and bre- 
vity of a worldly abbess or a president in petti- 
coats. " You see that I take courage in a place 
more frightful than I can tell you ; to crown the 
misery, we are freezing here. The company is poor ; 
they respect and bore us. All the women are ill 
continually ; they are loungers who have found the 
world really great as soon as ever they have been 
at Etampes." 

We have amused ourselves with this raillery, 
dry, disdainful, clear-cut and somewhat too short, 
and I have maintained to Paul that Mme. de Main- 



282 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



tenon resembles the yews at Versailles, brushy 
extinguishers that are too closely clipped. Where- 
upon I spoke very ill of the landscapes of the seven- 
teenth century, of Le Notre, Poussin and his archi- 
tectural nature, Leclerc, Perelle, and of their ab- 
stract, conventional trees, whose majestically round- 
ed foliage agrees with that of no known species. 
He lectured me severely, according to his custom, 
and called me narrow-minded ; he maintains that 
all is beautiful ; that all that is necessary is to put 
yourself at the right point of view. His reasoning 
was nearly as follows : 

He claims that things please us by contrast, and 
that beautiful thing-s are different for difterent souls. 
" One day," said he, " I was travelling with some 
English people in Champagne, on a cloudy day in 
September, lliey found the plains horrible, and I 
admirable. The dull fields stretched out like a sea 
to the very verge of the horizon, without encoun- 
tering a hill. The stalks of the close-reaped wheat 
dyed the earth with a wan yellow ; the plain seemed 
covered with an old wet mantle. Here were lines 
of deformed elms ; here and there a meagre square 
of fir-trees ; further off a cottage of chalk with its 
white pool : from furrow to furrow the sun trailed 
its sickly light, and the earth, emptied of its fruits, 
was like a woman dead in child-bed whose infant 
they have taken away. 



Chap. III. SAINT-SAUVEUR.— BAREGES. 285 

" My companions were utterly bored, and called 
down curses on France. Their minds, strained by 
the rude passions of politics, by the national arro- 
gance, and the stiffness of scriptural morality, 
needed repose. They wanted a smiling and 
flowery country, meadows soft and still, fine 
shadows, largely and harmoniously grouped on the 
slopes of the hills. .The sunburnt peasants, dull of 
countenance, sitting near a pool of mud, were dis- 
agreeable to them. For repose, they dreamed of 
pretty cottages set in fresh turf, fringed with rosy 
honeysuckle. Nothing could be more reasonable. 
A man obliged to hold himself upright and unbend- 
ing finds a sitting posture the most beautiful. , 

" You go to Versailles, and you cry out against 
the taste of the seventeenth century. Those for- 
mal and monumental waters, the firs turned in the 
lathe, the rectangular staircases heaped one above 
another, the trees drawn up like grenadiers on 
parade, recall to you the geometry class and the 
platoon school. Nothing can be better. But cease 
for an instant to judge according to your habits 
and wants of the day. You live alone, or at home, 
on a third floor in Paris, and spend four hours 
weekly in the saloons of some thirty different peo- 
ple. Louis XIV. lived eight hours a day, every 
day the whole year long, in public, and this public 
included all the lords of France. He held his 



THE VALLEY OE LUZ. Book III. 



drawing-room in the open air ; the drawing-room 
is the park at Versailles. Why ask of it the 
charms of a valley ? These squared hedges of horn- 
beam are necessary that the embroidered coats may 
not be caught. This levelled and shaven turf is 
necessary that high-heeled shoes may not be 
wetted. The duchesses will form a circle about 
these circular sheets of water. Nothino" can be 

O 

better chosen than these immense and symmetrical 
staircases for showineoff the Qrold and silver laced 
robes of three hundred ladies. These large alleys, 
which seem empty to you, were majestic when fifty 
lords in brocade and lace displayed here their cor- 
dons blc2ts and their o'raceful bows. No orarden is 

o o 

better constructed for showinor one's self in orrand 
costume and in great company, for making a bow, 
for chatting and concocting intrigues ot gallantry 
and business. You wish perhaps to rest, to be 
alone, to dream ; you must go elsewhere ; }-ou have 
come to the wron^r o-ate : but it would be the heiQ;-ht 
of absurdity to blame a drawing-room for being a 
drawing-room. 

" You understand then that our modern taste 
will be as transitory as the ancient ; that is to say, 
that it is precisely as reasonable and as foolish. 
We have the right to admire wild, uncultivated 
spots, as once men had the right of getting tired in 
them. Nothing uglier to the seventeenth century 



than a true mountain. It recalled a thousand ideas 
of misfortune. The men who had come out from 
the civil wars and semi-barbarism thought of 
famines, of long journeys on horseback through rain 




^-^ liUYOT 



and snow, of the wretched black bread mino-jed 
with straw, of the foul hostelries, infested with 
vermin. They were tired of barbarism as we of 
civilization. To-day the streets are so clean, the 
police so abundant, the houses drawn out in such 
regular lines, manners are so peaceful, events so 
small and so clearly foreseen, that we love grandeur 
and the unforeseen. The landscape changes as 
literature docs : then literature furnished long 



288 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



sugary romances and elegant dissertations ; now-a- 
days it offers spasmodic poetry and a physiological 
drama. Landscape is an unwritten literature ; the 
former like the latter is a sort of flattery addressed 
to our passions, or a nourishment proffered to our 




needs. These old wasted mountains, these lacera- 
ting points, bristling by myriads, these formidable 
fissures whose perpendicular wall plunges with a 
spring down into invisible depths ; this chaos of 
monstrous ridges heaped together, and crushing 



each other like an affrighted herd of leviathans ; 
this universal and implacable domination of the 
naked rock, the enemy of all life, refreshes us after 
our pavements, our offices and our shops. You 
only love them from this cause, and this cause 




removed, they would be as unpleasant to you as 
to Madame de Maintenon." 

So that there are fifty sorts of beauty, — one for 
every age. 

" Certainly." 

Then there is no such thing as beauty. 

" That is as if you were to say that a woman is 

nude because she has fifty dresses." 
19 



CHAPTER IV. 



CA UTERETS. 



L 



Cauterets is a town at the bottom of a valley, 
melancholy enough, paved, and provided with an 
octroi. Innkeepers, guides, the whole of a fam- 
ished population besieges us ; but we have consid- 
erable force of mind, and after a spirited resistance 
we obtain the x'vA\X. of looking' about and choos- 



mo-. 



Fifty paces further on, we are fastened upon by 
servants, children, donkey-hirers and boys, who 
accidentally stroll about us. They offer us cards, 
they praise up to us the site, the cuisine ; they ac- 
company us, cap in hand, to the very edge of the 
village ; at the same time they elbow away all com- 
petitors : "The stranger is mine, I'll baste you if 



Chap. IV. 



CA UTERETS. 



291 



you come near him." Each hotel has its runners 
on the watch ; they hunt the isard in winter, the 
traveller in summer. 

The town has several springs : that of the King 
cured Abarca, king of Aragon ; that of Caesar re- 
stored health, as they say, to the great Casar. 
Faith is needed in history as well as in medi- 
cine. 




'I HE PATIENTS OF THE OLDRN -I'lME. 



For example, in the time of Francis I. the Faux 
Bonnes cured wounds ; they were called Eaux 
d' arquebusades ; the soldiers wounded at Pavia 



2 92 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



were sent to them. Now they cure diseases of the 
throat and chest. A hundred years hence they 
will perhaps heal something else ; with every cen- 
tury medicine makes an advance. 

"Formerly," said Sgnarelle, "the liver was at 
the right and the heart at the left ; we have re- 
formed all that." 

A celebrated physician one day said to his pu- 
pils : "Employ this remedy at once, while it still 
cures." Medicines, like hats, have their fashions. 

Yet what can be said against this remedy ? 
The climate is warm, the gorge sheltered, the air 
pure, the gayety of the sun is cheering. A change 
of habits leads to a change of thoughts ; melan- 
choly ideas take flight. The water is not bad 
to drink; you have had a beautiful journey; the 
moral cures the physical nature ; if not, you have 
had hope for two months — and what, I beg to know, 
is a remedy, if not a pretext for hoping ? You 
take patience and pleasure until either illness or 
invalid departs, and everything is for the best in the 
best of worlds. 



11. 

Several leagues away, among the precipices, 
sleeps the lake of Gaube. The: green water, three 
hundred feet in depth, has the reflexes of an 




THE LAKE OF GAUBE. 



Chap. IV. 



CAUTERETS. 



29s 



emerald. The bald heads of the mountains are 
mirrored in it with a divine serenity. The slender 
column of the pines is reflected there as clear as in 
the air ; in the distance, the woods clothed in bluish 
mist come down to bathe their feet in its cold 
wave, and the huge Vignemale, spotted with snow, 
shuts it about with her cliffs. At times a remnant 
of breeze comes to ruffle it, and all those grand 




images undulate ; the Greek Diana, the wild, 
maiden huntress, would have taken it for a mir- 
ror. 

How one sees her come to life aeain in such sites ! 
Her marbles are fallen, her festivals have vanished ; 
but in the shivering of the firs, at the sound of the 
cracking glaciers, before the steely splendors of 



296 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



these chaste waters, she reappears hke a vision. 
All the night long, in the outcries of the wind, the 
herdsmen could hear the baying of her hounds 
and the whistling of her arrows ; the untamed 
chorus of her nymphs coursed over the precipices ; 
the moon shone upon their shoulders of silver, and 
on the point of their lances. In the morning she 
came to bathe her arms in the lake ; and more 
than once has she been seen standing upon a sum- 
mit, her eyes fixed, her brow severe ; her foot trod 
the cruel snow, and her virgin breasts gleamed be- 
neath the winter sun. 



III. 

The Diana of the country is more amiable ; it is 
the lively and gracious Margaret of Navarre, sister 
and liberatress of Francis I. She came to these 
waters with her court, her poets, her musicians, 
her savants, a poet and theologian herself, of in- 
finite curiosity, reading Greek, learning Hebrew, 
and taken up with Calvinism. On coming out of 
the routine and discipline of the middle ages, dis- 
putes about dogma and the thorns of erudition ap- 
peared agreeable, even to ladies ; Lady Jane Grey, 
Elizabeth took part in these things : it was a fashion, 
as two centuries later it was good taste to dispute 
upon Newton and the existence of God. The 



Chap. IV. CAUTERETS. 297 



Bishop of Meaux wrote to Margaret : " Madame, if 
there were at the end of the world a doctor who, 
by a single abridged verb, could teach you as 
much grammar as it is possible to know, and an- 
other as much rhetoric, and another philosophy, 
and so on with the seven liberal arts, each one by 
an abridged verb, you would fly there as to the 
fire." She did fly there and got overloaded. The 
heavy philosophic spoil oppressed her already 
slender thought. Her pious poems are as infan- 
tile as the odes written by Racine at Port-Royal. 
What trouble we have had in ofettinor free from the 
middle ages ! The mind bent, warped and twisted, 
had contracted the ways of a choir-boy. 

A poet of the country composed in her honor 
the following pretty song : — 

At the baths of Toulouse 

There's a spring clear and fair, 
And three pretty doves 

Came to drink and bathe there ; 
When at last they had bathed 

Thus for months barely three, 
For the heights of Cauterets 

Left they fountain and me. 

But why go to Cauterets, 

What is there to be seen ? 
" It is there that we bathe 

With the king and the queen. 



298 THE VALLEY OE LUZ. Book III. 



And the king has a cot 

Hung with jasmin in tlower ; 
The dear queen has the same, 

But love makes it a bower.* 

Is it not graceful and thoroughly southern ? 
Margaret is less poetic, more French : her verses 
are not brilliant, but at times are very touching, by 
force of real and simple tenderness. 

Car quand je puis aupres de moi tenir 
Cehii que j'aime, nial ne me peut venir. 

A moderate imagination, a woman's heart 
thoroughly devoted, and inexhaustible in devotion, 
a good deal of naturalness, clearness, ease, the art 
of narration and of smiling, an agreeable but never 
wicked malice, is not this enough to make you 
love Margaret and read here the Heptameron ? 



* For fear that in my ver>iun the grace may liave disappeared, I append 
the original. — Translator. 

Ails Thermes de Toulouso Digat-me, palomnettes, 

Ue fontaine claru y a, Qui y ey a Caiiteres? 

Bagnan s'y paloumettos " Lou rcy et la reynette 

Aii noinbre soun de tres. Si bagnay dab nous tres, 

Tant s'y soun bagnadette Lou rey qu'a ue cabano 

Pendant dus ou tres mes, Couberto qu'ey de flous ; 

Qu'an pres la bouladette La reyne que n'a gu'aiite, 

Taiihaiit de Cauteres. Couberto qu'ey d'amous." 




NEAR PONT d'eSPAGNE. 



Chap. IV. 



CA UTERETS. 



301 



IV. 



She wrote the Heptameron here ; it seems that a 




journey to the waters was then less safe than now- 
a-days. 

The first day of the month of September, as the 
baths of the Pyrenees mountains begin to have 
virtue, were found at those of Caulderets several 
persons, from France and Spain as well as 



I 



302 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



Other places ; some to drink the water, others 
bathe in it, others to take the mud, which things 
are so marvellous, that invalids abandoned by the 
physicians return from them completely cured. 
But about the time of their return, there came on 




such orreat rains, that it seemed that God had for- 
gotten the promise given to Noah never again to 
destroy the world by water ; for all the cabins and 
dwelling's of the said Caulderets were so filled with 
water that it became impossible to live in them. 

" The French lords and ladies, thinking to return 
to Tarbes as easily as they had come, found the 
little brooks so swollen that they could scarcely 
ford them. Rut when they came to pass the 
Bearnese Oave, which was not two feet deep when 
they first saw it, they found it so large and im- 



11 



Hr 



m 



'llll:llliill:IIHi|aillli<!iiiili: 



Iti 



■■I 



i P^^^^ 




Chap. IV. CAUTERETS. 305 



petuous, that they made a circuit to look for the 
bridges, which, being nothing but wood, were 
swept away by the vehemence of the water. And 
some, thinkine to break the violence of the course 
by assembling several together, were so promptly 
swept away, that those who would follow them lost 
the power and the desire of going after." Where- 
upon they separated, each one seeking a way for 
himself " Two poor ladies, half a league beyond 
Pierrefitte, found a bear coming down the moun- 
tain, before which they galloped away in such great 
haste that their horses fell dead under them at the 
entrance of their dwelling ; two of their women, who 
came a long time after, told them that the bear had 
killed all their serving men. 

" So while they are all at mass, there comes 
into the church a man with nothing on but his 
shirt, fleeing as if some one were chasing and fol- 
lowing him up. It was one of their companions by 
the name of Guebron, who recounted to them how, 
as he was in a hut near Pierrefitte, three men came 
while he was in bed ; but he, all in his shirt as he 
was, with only his sword, wounded one of them so 
that he remained on the spot, and, while the other 
two amused themselves in gathering up their com- 
panion, thought that he could not escape if 
not by flight, as he was the least burdened by 



clothinor. 



20 



3o6 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 

" The abbe of Saint-Savin furnished them with 
the best horses to be had in Lavedan, good Beam 
cloaks, a quantity of provisions, and pretty com- 
panions to lead them safely in the mountains." 

But it was necessary to busy themselves some- 
what, while waiting for the Gave to go down. In 
the morning they went to find Mme. Oysille, the 
oldest of the ladies ; they devoudy listened to the 
mass with her; after which " she did not fail to ad- 
minister the salutary food which she drew from the 
reading of the acts of the saints and glorious apostles 
of Jesus Christ." The afternoon was employed in 
a very different fashion : they went into a beautiful 
meadow alonsf the river Gave, where the foliage ot 
the trees is so dense, " that the sun could neither 
pierce the shade nor warm the coolness, and seated 
themselves upon the green grass, which is so solt 
and delicate that they needed neither cushions nor 
carpets." And each in turn related some gallant 
adventure with details infinitely artless and singular- 
ly precise. There were some relating to husbands 
and yet more about monks. The lovely theolo- 
gian is the grand-daughter of Boccaccio, and the 
erand-mother of La Fontaine. 

This shocks us, and yet is not shocking. Each 
age has its degree of decency, which is prudery for 
this and blackguardism for another. The Chinese 
find our trousers and close-fitting coat-sleeves 



Chap. IV. CAUTERETS. 309 

horribly immodest ; I know a lady, an English- 
woman in fact, who allows only two parts in the 
body, the foot and the stomach : every other word 
is indecent ; so that when her litde boy has a fall, 
the governess must say: "Master Henry has 
fallen, Madame, on the place where the top of his 
feet rejoins the bottom of his stomach." 

The habitual ways of the sixteenth century were 
very different. The lords lived a little like men of 
the people ; that is why they talked somewhat like 
men of the people. Bonnivet and Henri II. amused 
themselves in jumping like school-boys, and leap- 
ing over ditches twenty-three feet wide. When 
Henry VIII. of England had saluted Francis I. on 
the field of the cloth of gold, he seized him in his 
arms and tried to throw him, out of pure sportive- 
ness ; but the king, a good wrestler, laid him low 
by a trip. Fancy to-day the Emperor Napoleon at 
Tilsitt receiving the Emperor Alexander in this 
fashion. The ladies were obliged to be robust and 
agile as our peasants. To go to an evening party 
they had to mount on horseback ; Margaret, when 
in Spain, fearful of being detained, made in eight 
days the stages for which a good horseman would 
have required fifteen days ; one had, too, to guard 
one's self asfainst violence ; once she had need of 
her two fists and all her nails against Bonnivet. In 
the midst of such manners, free talk was only the 



3IO THE VALLEY OF LUZ. PJooic III. 



natural talk ; the ladies heard it every day at table, 
and adorned with the finest commentaries. Bran- 
tome will describe for )-ou the cup from which 
certain lords made them drink, and Cellini will re- 
late you the conversation that was held with the 
Duchess of Ferrara. A milkmaid now-a-days 
would be ashamed of it. Students anion o- them- 
selves, even when they are tipsy, will scarce ven- 
ture what the ladies of honor of Catherine de 
Medicis sang at the top of their voice and with all 
their heart. Pardon our poor Margaret ; relatively 
she is decent and delicate, and then consider that 
two hundred years hence, you also, my dear sir 
and madam, you will perhaps appear like very 
blackguards. 

V. 

SoxMETiMEs here, after a broiling day, the clouds 
gather, the air is stifling, one feels fairly ill, and a 
storm bursts forth. There was such an one last 
night. Each moment the heavens opened, cleft 
by an immense flash, and the vault of darkness 
lifted itself entire like a tent. The dazzling light 
marked out the; limits of the various cultures and the 
forms of the trees at the distance of a leaofue. The 
glaciers flamed with a bluish glimmer ; the jagged 
peaks suddenly lifted themselves upon the horizon 
like an army of spectres. The gorge was illu- 








CAUTERETS. 



Chap. IV. 



CA UTERETS. 



mined in its very depths ; its heaped-up blocks, its 
trees hooked on to the rocks, its torn ravines, its 




foaming Gave, were seen under a livid whiteness, 
and vanished like the fleetino- visions of an im- 
known and tortured world. Soon the voice of the 
thunder rolled in the gorges ; the clouds that bore 
it crept midway along the mountain side, and came 
into collision among the rocks ; the report burst 
out like a discharge of artillery. The wind rose 
and the rain came on. The inclined plane of the 
summits opened up under its squalls ; the funeral 



314 



THE VALLEY OE LUZ. 



Book III. 



drapery of the pines clung to the sides of the moun- 
tain. A creeping- plain came out from the rocks 
and trees. The long streaks of rain thickened the 
air ; under the flashes you saw the water streaming, 
flooding the summits, descending the two slopes, 
sliding in sheets over the rocks, and from all sides 
in hurried waves running to the Gave. In the 
morning the roads were cut up with sloughs, the 
trees hung by their bleeding roots, great patches 
of earth had fallen away, and the torrent was a 
river. 





CHAPTER V. 



SAINTS A VIN. 



I. 

Upon a hill, at the end of a road, are the re- 
mains of the abbey of Saint-Savin. The old 
church was, they say, built by Charlemagne ; the 
stones, eaten and burned, are crumbling ; the dis- 
jointed flags are incrusted with moss ; from the 
garden the eye takes in the valley, brown in the 
evening light ; the winding Gave already lifts into 
the air its trail of pale smoke. 

It was sweet here to be a monk ; it is in such 
places that the Imitation should be read ; in such 
places was it written. For a sensitive and noble 
nature, a convent was then the sole refuge; all 
around wounded and repelled it. 

Around what a horrible world! Brigand lords 
who plunder travellers and butcher each other ; ar- 
tisans and soldiers who stuff themselves with meat 



:i6 



THE VALLE Y OF L UZ. 



Book III. 



and yoke themselves together hke brutes ; pea- 
sants whose huts they burn, whose wives they 



iHllf™*'''''''"'*™'' "'""'"'''" ^ "''^^"' ' "!'' I'""''' 1'"'"^' "^™i'Jf' 




violate, who out of despair and hunger slip away 
to tumult. No remembrance of good, nor hope of 
better. How sweet it is to renounce action, compa- 
ny, speech, to hide one's self, forget outside things, 
and to listen, in security and solitude, to the divine 
voices that, like collected springs, murmur peace- 
fully in the depths of the heart ! 

How easy is it here to forget the world ! 
Neither books, nor news, nor science ; no one 
travels and no one thinks. This valley is the 
whole universe ; from time to time a peasant 
passes, or a man-at-arms. A moment more and he 
is gone ; the mind has retained no more trace of 
him than the empty road. Every morning the 
eyes find again the great woods asleep upon 



C H AP. V . SA I NTS A VIN. 3 1 7 



the mountain's brow, and the layers of clouds 
stretched out on the edge of the sky. The rocks 
light up, the summit of the forests trembles beneath 
the risino- breeze, the shadow changes at the foot 
of the oaks, and the mind takes on the calm and 
the monotony of these slow sights by which it 
is nourished. Meanwhile the responses of the 
monks drone confusedly in the chapel ; then their 
measured tread resounds in the high corridors. 
Each day the same hours bring back the same im- 
pressions and the same images. The soul empties 
itself of worldly ideas, and the heavenly dream, 
which begins to flow within, little by httle heaps 
up the silent wave that is going to fill it. 

Far from it are science and treatises on doctrine. 
They drain the stream instead of swelling it. Will 
so many words augment peace and inward tender- 
ness ? "The kingdom of God consisteth not in 
word, but in power." The heart must be moved, 
tears must flow, the arms must open toward an 
unseen place, and the sudden trouble will not be the 
work of the lips, but the touch of the hand divine. 
This hand it is which doth " lift up the humble 
mind; " this it is which teaches "without noise of 
words, without confusion of opinions, without am- 
bition of honor, without the scuffling of argu- 
ments." A light penetrates, and all at once the 
eyes see as it were a new heaven and a new earth. 



3i« 



THE VALLE Y OE L UZ. 



Booiv III. 



The men of the age perceive in its events only 
the events themselves ; the solitary discovers be- 
hind the veil of things created the presence and 
the will of God. He it is who by the sun warms 
the earth, and by the rain refreshes it. He it is 
who sustains the mountains and envelops them at 
the setting of the sun in the repose of night. The 




heart feels everywhere, around and inside of things, 
an immense goodness, like a vague ocean of light 
which penetrates and animates the world; to this 
goodness it intrusts and abandons itself like a child 
that drops asleep at evening on its mother's knees. 
A hundred times a day divine things become pal- 
pable to it. The light streams through the morn- 
ing mist, chaste as the brow of the virgin ; the 




CASCADK OK CKKISKV, NI';AH I'ON P L) ESI'AGNK. 



Chap. V. SAINT-SAVIN. 321 

stars shine like celestial eyes, and yonder when the 
sun g-oes down the clouds kneel at the brink of 
heaven, like a blazing choir of seraphim. 

The heathen were indeed blind in their thoughts 
upon the grandeur of nature. What is our earth, 
but a narrow pass between two eternal worlds ! 
Down there, beneath our feet, are the damned and 
their pains ; they howl in their caverns and the 
earth trembles ; without the sign of God, these walls 
would to-morrow be swallowed up in their abyss ; 
they often come out thence by the bare precipices ; 
the passers-by hear their shouts of laughter in the 
cascades ; behind those gnarled beeches, glimpses 
have been caught of their grimacing countenances, 
their eyes of flame, and more than one herdsman, 
wandering at night towards their haunt, has been 
found in the morning with hair on end and twisted 
neck. But up there, in the azure, above the crystal, 
are the angels ; many a time has the vault opened, 
and, in a long trail of light, the saints have appear- 
ed more radiant than molten silver, suddenly visible, 
then all at once vanished. A monk saw them ; the 
last abbot was informed by them, in a vision, of the 
spring which healed his diseases. Another, long 
time ago, hunting wild beasts one day, saw a great 
stag stop before him with eyes filled with tears ; 
when he had looked, he saw upon its antlers the 

cross of Jesus Christ, fell on his knees, and, on his 
21 



3-2 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



return to the convent, lived for thirty years doing 
penance in his cell, without any desire to leave it. 
Another, a very young man, who had gone into a 
forest of pines, heard far off a nightingale which 
sang marvellously ; he drew near in astonishment, 
and it seemed to him that everything was trans- 
figured ; the brooks flowed as it were a long stream 
of tears, and again seemed full of pearls ; the 
violet fringes of the firs shone magnificently, like a 
stole, upon their funereal trunks. The rays ran 
along the leaves, empurpled and azured as if by 
cathedral windows ; flowers of gold and velvet 
opened their bleeding hearts in the midst of the 
rocks. He approached the bird, which he could 
not see among the branches, but which sang like 
the finest organ, with notes so piercing and so ten- 
der, that his heart was at once torn and melted. 
He saw nothing more of what was about him, and 
it seemed to him that his soul detached itself from 
his breast, and went away to the bird, and mingled 
itself with the voice which rose ever vibrating more 
and more in a song of ecstasy and anguish, as if it had 
been the inner voice of Christ to his Father when he 
was dying on the cross. When he returned towards 
the convent, he was astonished to find that the 
walls, which were quite new, had become brown as 
through age, that the little lindens in the garden 
were now cfreat trees, that no face amonof the 



Chap. V. SAINT-SA VIN. 323 



monks was familiar to him, and that no one remem- 
bered to have seen him. Finally an infirm old 
monk called to mind that in former times they had 
talked to him of a novice who had gone, a hundred 
years before, into the pine forest, but who had not 
come back, so that no one had ever known what 
had happened to him. Thus transported and for- 
ofotten will those live who shall hear the inner 
voices. God envelops us, and we have only to 
abandon ourselves to him in order to feel him. 

For he does not hold communion through out- 
side things only; he is within us, and our thoughts 
are his words. He who retires within himself, who 
listens no more to the news of this world, who 
effaces from his mind its reasonings and imagina- 
tions, and who holds himself in expectancy, in 
silence and solitude, sees little by little a thought 
rise in him which is not his own, which comes and 
goes without his will, and, whatever he may will, 
which fills and enchants him, like those words, 
heard in a dream, which make tranquil the soul 
with their mysterious song. The soul listens and 
no longer perceives the flight of the hours ; all its 
powers are arrested, and its movements are nothing 
but the impressions which come to it from above. 
Christ speaks, it answers ; it asks, and he teaches ; 
it is afflicted, and he consoles. " My son, now will 
I teach thee the way of peace and true liberty. 



-24 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



O Lord, I beseech thee, do as thou sayest, for this 
is dehghtful for me to hear. Be desirous, my son, 
to do the will of another rather than thine own, 
choose always to Jiave less rather than more. Seek 
always the lozvest place, and to be inferior to every 
one. Wish alzaays, a7id pray, that the zvill of God 
may be wholly fulfilled in thee. Behold such a man 
enter eth within the borders of peace and rest. O 
Lord, this short discourse of thine containeth with- 
in itself much perfection. It is Httle to be spoken, 
but full of meaning, and abundant in fruit." How 
languid is everything alongside of this divine com- 
pany ! How all which departs from it is unsight- 
ly! "When Jesus is present, all is well, and noth- 
ing seems difficult : but when Jesus is absent every- 
thing is hard. When Jesus speaks not inwardly to 
us, all other comfort is nothing worth ; but if Jesus 
speak but one word, we feel great consolation. How 
dry and hard art thou without Jesus ! How foolish 
and vain, if thou desire anything out of Jesus ! Is 
not this a greater loss than if thou shouldest lose the 
whole world ? He that findeth Jesus, findeth a good 
treasure, yea, a Good above all good. And he that 
loseth Jesus, loseth much indeed, yea. more than 
the whole world ! Most poor is he who liveth with- 
out Jesus ; and he most rich who is well with Jesus. 
It is matter of ereat skill to know how to hold con- 
verse with Jesus ; and to know how to keep Jesus, a 



Chap. V. 



SAINT-SA VIN. 



325 



point of great wisdom. Be thou humble and peace- 
able, and Jesus will be with thee. Be devout and 
quiet, and Jesus will stay with thee. Thou mayest 
soon drive away Jesus and lose his favor if thou wilt 
turn aside to outward things. And if thou shouldest 
drive him from thee, and lose him, unto whom wilt 
thou flee, and whom wilt thou seek for thy friend } 
Without a friend thou canst not well live ; and if 
Jesus be not above all a friend to thee, thou shalt 
be sad and desolate." — " Behold ! My God, and all 
things." What can I wish more, and what happier 
thing can I long for? "My God, and all things." 
To him that understandeth, enough is said ; and to 
repeat it often is delightful to him that loveth. 

Some died of this love, lost in ecstasies or 
drowned in a divine languor. These are the great 
poets of the middle ages. 





CHAPTER VI. 



GA VARNIE. 
I. 

From Luz to Gavarnie is eighteen miles. 

It is enjoined upon every living creature able to 
mount a horse, a mule, or any quadruped whatever, 
to visit Gavarnie ; in default of other beasts, he 
should, putting aside all shame, bestride an ass. 
Ladies and convalescents are taken there in sedan- 
chairs. 

Otherwise, think what a figure you will make on 
your return. 

" You come from the Pyrenees ; you've seen 
Gavarnie ? " 

"No." 

What then did you go to the Pyrenees for ? 

You hang your head, and your friend triumphs, 
especially if he was bored at Gavarnie. You un- 
dergo a description of Gavarnie after the last 
edition of the euide-book. Gavarnie is a sublime 



Chap. VI. GAVARNIE. 327 



sight ; tourists go sixty miles out of their way to 
see it ; the Duchess d'Angouleme had herself carried 
to the furthest rocks ; Lord Bute, when he saw it for 
the first time, cried : " If I were now at the ex- 
tremity of India, and suspected the existence of 
what I see at this moment, I should immediately 
leave in order to enjoy and admire it ! " You are 
overwhelmed with quotations and supercilious 
smiles ; you are convicted of laziness, of dulness 
of mind, and, as certain English, travellers say, of 
u7icBsthetic insensibility. 

. There are but two resources : to learn a descrip- 
tion by heart, or to make the journey. I have made 
the journey, and am going to give the description. 



II. 



We leave at six o'clock in the morning, by 
the road to Scia, in the fog, without seeing at first 
anything beyond great confused forms of trees and 
rocks. At the end of a quarter of an hour, we hear 
along the pathway a noise of sharp cries drawing 
near : it was a funeral procession coming from Scia. 
Two men bore a small coffin under a white shroud ; 
behind came four herdsmen in long cloaks and 
brown capuchons, silent, with bent heads ; four 
women followed in black mantles. It was they 



328 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 




who uttered those monotonous and piercing lamen- 
tations ; one knew 
not if they were 
wailing or pray- 
ing. They walked 
with long steps 
throuofh the cold 
mist, without stop- 
ping or looking at 
any one, and were 
going to bury the 
poor body in the 
cemetery at Luz. 

At Scia the road 
passes over a 
small bridge very 
high up, which 
commands anoth- 
er bridge, gray 
and abandoned. 
The double tier of 
arches bends 
gracefully over 
the blue torrent ; 
meanwhile a pale 
light already floats 
in the diaphanous 

mist; a golden gauze undulates above the 





•iiiK Ai;ri<;uK »niix;k a r sc\f 



Chap. VI. GAVARNIE. 331 

Gave ; the aerial veil grows thin and will soon 
vanish. 

Nothing can convey the idea of this light, so 
youthful, timid and smiHng, which glitters like the 
bluish wings of a dragon-fly that is pursued and is 
taken captive in a net of fog. Beneath, the boiling 
water is engulfed in a narrow conduit and leaps 
like a mill-race. The column of foam, thirty feet 
high, falls with a furious din, and its glaucous waves, 
heaped together in the deep ravine, dash against 
each other and are broken upon a line of fallen 
rocks. Other enormous rocks, debris of the same 
mountain, hang above the road, their squared heads 
crowned with brambles for hair ; ranged in impreg- 
nable line, they seem to watch the torments of the 
Gave, which their brothers hold beneath them- 
selves crushed and subdued. 



III. 



We turn a second bridge and enter the plain of 
Gedres, verdant and cultivated, where the hay is in 
cocks ; they are harvesting ; our horses walk between 
two hedges of hazel ; we go along by orchards ; 
but the mountain is ever near ; the guide shows us a 
rock three times the height of a man, which, two 
years ago, rolled down and demolished a house. 



332 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book 111. 



We encounter several singular caravans : a band 
of young priests in black hats, black gloves, black 
cassocks tucked up, black stockings, very apparent, 
novices in horsemanship who bound at every step, 
like the Gave ; a big, jolly round man, in a sedan- 
chair, his hands crossed over his belly, who looks 
on us with a paternal air, and reads his news- 
paper ; three ladies of sufficiently ripe age, very 
slender, very lean, very stiff, who, for dignity's 
sake, set their beasts on a trot as we draw near 
them. The cicisbeo is a bony cartilaginous gentle- 
man, fixed perpendicularly on his saddle like a tele- 
graph-pole. We hear a harsh clucking, as of a 
choked hen, and we recognize the English tongue. 

As for the French nation, it is but poorly repre- 
sented at Gedres. First appears a long, mouldy 
custom-house officer, who indorses the permission 
to pass of the horses ; with his once green coat the 
poor man had the air of having sojourned a week 
in the river. No sooner has he let us go, than a 
blackguard band, boys and girls, pounces upon us ; 
some stretch out their hands, others wish to sell 
stones to us ; they motion to the guide to stop ; 
they claim the travellers ; two or three hold the bridle 
of each horse, and all cry in chorus : " The grotto ! 
the grotto ! " There is nothing for it but to resign 
ourselves and see the grotto. 

A servant opens a door, makes us descend two 



I 



Chap. VI. GA VARNIE. 335 



Staircases, throws a lump of earth in passing into a 
lagiine, to awaken the sleeping fish, takes half-a- 
dozen steps over a couple of planks. " Well, the 
o-rotto ? " — " Behold it, Monsieur." We see a 
streamlet of water between two rocks overhung 
with ash-trees. " Is that all ?" She does not un- 
derstand, opens her eyes wide and goes away. We 
ascend again and read this inscription : The charge 
for seeing the grotto is ten cents. The matter is all 
explained. The peasants of the Pyrenees are not 
wanting in brains. 

IV. 

Beyond Gedres is a wild valley called Chaos, 
which is well named. After quarter of an hour's 
journey there, the trees disappear, then the juniper 
and the box, and finally the moss ; the Gave is no 
longer seen ; all noises are hushed. It is a dead 
solitude peopled with wrecks. Three avalanches 
of rocks and crushed flint have come down from the 
summit to the very bottom. The horrid tide, high 
and a quarter of a league in length, spreads out 
like waves its myriads of sterile stones, and the in- 
clined sheet seems still to glide towards inundating 
the gorge. These stones are shattered and pulver- 
ized ; their living fractures and thin harsh points 
wound the eye ; they are still bruising and crushing 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



each other. Not a bush, not a spear of grass ; the 
arid grayish train burns beneath a sun of brass ; its 
debris are scorched to a duh hue, as in a furnace. 
A ruined mountain is more desolate than any- 
human ruin. 

A hundred paces further on, the aspect of the 
valley becomes formidable. Troops of mammoths 
and mastodons in stone lie crouching over the 
eastern declivity, one above another, and heaped 
up over the whole slope. These colossal ridges 
shine with a tawny hue like iron rust ; the most 
enormous of them drink the water of the river at 
their base. They look as if warming their bronzed 
skin in the sun, and sleep, turned over, stretched 
out on their side, resting in all attitudes, and always 
gigantic and frightful. Their deformed paws are 
curled up ; their bodies half buried in the earth ; 
their monstrous backs rest one upon another. 
When you enter into the midst of the prodigious 
band, the horizon disappears, the blocks rise fifty 
feet into the air ; the road winds painfully among the 
overhaneinc: masses ; men and horses seem but 
dwarfs ; these rusted edo^es mount in stao^es to the 
very summit, and the dark hanging army seems 
ready to fall on the hunian insects which come to 
trouble its sleep. 

Once upon a time, the mountain, in a paroxysm 
of fever, shook its summits like a cathedral that is 



2 P 




Chap. VI. 



GA VARNIE. 



2>Z9 



falling in. A few points resisted, and their embat- 
tled turrets are drawn out in line on the crest ; but 
their layers are dislocated, their sides creviced, their 
points jagged. The whole shattered ridge totters. 
Beneath them the rock fails suddenly in a living 
and still bleeding wound. The splinters are lower 
down, strewn over the declivity. The tumbled 




rocks are sustained one upon another, and man to- 
day passes in safety amidst the disaster. But what 
a day was that of the ruin ! It is not very ancient, 
perhaps of the sixth century, and the year of the 
terrible earthquake told of by Gregory of Tours, 
If a man could without perishing have seen the 



340 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Boor III. 

summits split, totter and fall, the two seas of rock 
come bounding into the gorge, meet one another 
and grind each other amidst a shower of sparks, 
he would have looked upon the grandest spectacle 
ever seen by human eyes. 

On the west, a perpendicular mole, crannied like 
an old ruin, lifts itself straight up towards the sky. 
A leprosy of yellowish moss has incrusted its pores, 
and has clothed it all over with a sinister livery. 
This livid robe upon this parched stone has a splen- 
did effect. Nothing is uglier than the chalky flints 
that are drawn from the quarry ; just dug up, they 
seem cold and damp in their whitish shroud ; they 
are not used to the sun ; they make a contrast with 
the rest. But the rock that has lived in the air for 
ten thousand years, where the light has every day 
laid on and melted its metallic tints, is the friend of 
the sun, and carries its mantle upon its shoulders; 
it has no need of a o-arment of verdure ; if it suf- 
fers from parasitic vegetations, it sticks them to its 
sides and imprints them with its colors. The 
threatening tones with which it clothes itself suits 
the free sky, the naked landscape, the powerful 
heat that environs it ; it is alixe like a plant ; only 
it is of another age, one niore severe and stronger 
than that in which we vegetate. 



Chap. VI. GA VARNIE. 341 



V. 

Gavarnie is a very ordinary village, commanding- 
a view of the amphitheatre we are come to see. 
After you have left it, it is still necessary to go three 
miles through a melancholy plain, half buried in 
sand by the winter inundations ; the waters of the 
Gave are muddy and dull ; a cold wind whistles 
from the amphitheatre ; the glaciers, strewn with 
mud and stones, are stuck to the declivity like 
patches of dirty plaster. The mountains are bald 
and ravined by cascades; black cones of scattered 
firs climb them like routed soldiers ; a meagre and 
wan turf wretchedly clothes their mutilated heads. 
The horses ford the Gave stumblingly, chilled by 
the water coming from the snows. In this wasted 
solitude you meet, all of a sudden, the most smiling 
parterre. A throng of the lovely iris crowds itself 
into the bed of a dried torrent : the sun stripes with 
rays of gold their velvety petals of tender blue ; 
the harvest of plumes winds with the sinuosities 
of the bank, and the eye follows over the whole 
plain the folds of the rivulet of flowers. 

We climb a last eminence, sown with iris and 
with stones. There is a hut where you breakfast 
and leave the horses. You arm yourself with a 
stout stick, and descend upon the glaciers of the 
amphitheatre. 



342 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 




I 




These glaciers are very ugly, very dirty, very 

uneven, very slip- 
■^^^p^, pery ; at every step 

you run the risk of 

falHng, and if you 

fall, it is on sharp 

stones or into deep 

holes. They look 

very like heaps of old 

plaster - work, a n d 

those who have ad- 
mired them must 

have a stock of ad- 
miration for sale. 

The water has pier- 
'1^ J^ ced them so that you 

walk upon bridges of 

snow. These bridges 

have the appearance 

of kitchen air-holes ; 
the water is swallowed up in a vcr)- low archway, 
and, when you look closely, you get a distinct sight 
of a black hole. An Englishman who wished to 
enjoy the view, allowed himself to fall, and came 
out half dead, "with the rapidity of a trout." We 
left such experiments to the trout and the English. 





Chap. VI. 



GA VARNIE. 



543 



Vl. 

After the glaciers we find a sloping esplanade ; 
we climb for ten minutes bruising our feet upon frag- 




ments of sharp rock. Since leaving the hut we have 
not lifted our eyes, in order to reserve for our- 
selves an unbroken sensation. Here at last we 
look. 



344 



THE VALLEY OE LUZ. 



Book III. 



A wall of granite crowned with snow hollows 
itself before us in a gigantic amphitheatre. This 
amphitheatre is twelve hundred feet high, nearly 
three miles in circumference, three tiers of perpen- 
dicular walls, and in each tier thousands of steps. 




The valley ends there ; the wall is a single block, 
and impregnable. The other summits might fall, 
but its massive layers would not be moved. The 
mind is overwhelmed by the idea of a stability 
that cannot be shaken and an assured eternity. 
There is the boundary of two countries and two 
races ; this it is that Roland wanted to break, 
when with a sword-stroke he opened a breach in 
the summit. But the immense wound disappeared 



Chap. VI. 



GA VARNIE. 



347 



in the immensity of the un- 
conquered wall. Three sheets 
of snow are spread out over 
the three tiers of layers. The 
sun falls with all its force upon 
this viro-inal robe without be- 
ine able to make it shine. It 
preserves its dead whiteness. 
All this g-randeur is austere ; 
the air is chilled beneath the 
noonday rays ; great, damp 
shadows creep along the foot 
of the walls. It is the ever- 
lastincf winter and the naked- 
ness of the desert. The sole 
inhabitants are the cascades 
assembled to form the Gave. 
The streamlets of water come 
by thousands from the highest 
layer, leap from step to step, 
cross their stripes of foam, 
wind, unite and fall by a dozen 
brooks that slide from the last 
layer in flaky streaks to lose 
themselves in the glaciers of 
the bottom. The thirteenth 
cascade on the left is twelve 
hundred and sixty- six feet 




348 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 

high. It falls slowly, like a dropping cloud, or the 
unfolding of a muslin veil ; the air softens its fall ; 
the eye follows complacently the graceful undula- 
tion of the beautiful airy veil. It glides the 
length of the rock, and seems to float rather 
than to fall. The sun shines, through its plume, 
with the softest and loveliest splendor. It reaches 
the bottom like a bouquet of slender waving 
feathers, and springs backward in a silver dust ; 
the fresh and transparent mist swings about the 
rock it bathes, and its rebounding train mounts 
lightly along the courses. No stir in the air ; no 
noise, no living creature in this solitude. You hear 
only the monotonous murmur of the cascades, re- 
sembling the rustle of the leaves that the wind stirs 
in the forest. 

On our return, we seated ourselves at the door 
of the hut. It is a poor, squat little house, heavily 
supported upon thick walls ; the knotty joists of 
the ceiling retain their bark. It is indeed necessary 
that it should be able to stand out alone against the 
snows of winter. You find everywhere the im- 
print of the terrible months it has gone through. 
Two dead fir-trees stand erect at the door. The 
garden, three feet square, is defended by enormous 
walls of pilcd-up slates. The low and black stable 
leaves neither foot-hold nor entry for the winds. A 
lean colt was seeking a little grass among the 



I; 



^'^$\ 











K^^^ 



-._» 






TIIK CASCADE AS SEF.N FROM THE INN. 



Chap. VI. 



GA VARNIE. 



351 



stones. A small bull, with surly air, looked at us 
out of the sides of his eyes ; the animals, the trees 
and the site, wore a threatening or melancholy 
aspect. But in the clefts of a rock were growing 
some admirable buttercups, lustrous and splendid, 
which looked as if painted by a ray of sunshine. 

At the village we met our companions of the 
journey who had sat down there. The good 
tourists get fatigued, stop ordinarily at the inn, 
take a substantial dinner, have a chair brought to 
the door, and digest while looking at the amphi- 
theatre, which from there appears about as high 
as a house. After this they return, praising the 
sublime sight, and very glad that they have come 
to the Pyrenees. 





CHAPTER VII. 



THE BERGONZ.—THE PIC DU MIDI. 



I. 



We ought to be useful to our fellow-mortals ; 
I have climbed the Beroronz in order to have at 
least one ascent to tell about. 

A stony, zigzag" pathway excoriates the green 
mountain with its whitish track. The view 
changes with every turn. Above and below us are 
meadows with girls making hay, and little houses 
stuck to the declivity like swallows' nests. Lower 
down, an immense pit of black rock, to which from 
all sides hasten streams of silver. The higher up 
we are, the more the valleys are contracted and 
fade from sight ; the more the gray mountains 



Chap. VII. BERGONZ.— PIC DU MIDI. 353 



enlarge and spread themselves in all their huge- 
ness. Suddenly, beneath the burning sun, the 
perspective becomes confused ; we feel the cold 
and damp touch of some unknown and invisible 
being. A moment after, the air clears up, and we 
perceive behind us the white, rounded back of a 
beautiful cloud fleeing into the distance, and whose 
shadow glides lightly over the slope. The useful 
herbage soon disappears ; scorched mosses, 
thousands of rhododendrons clothe the barren 
escarpments ; the road is damaged by the force of 
the hidden springs ; it is encumbered with rolling 
stones. It turns with every ten paces, in order to 
conquer the steepness of the slopes. You reach 
at last a naked ridge, where you dismount from 
your horse ; here begins the top of the mountain. 
You walk for ten minutes over a carpet of serried 
heather, and you are upon the highest summit. 

What a view ! Everything human disappears ; 
villages, enclosures, cultivations, all seem like the 
work of ants. I have two valleys under my eyes, 
which seem two little bands of earth lost in a blue 
funnel. Nothinof exists here but the mountains. 
Our i'oads and our works have scratched upon 
them an imperceptible point ; we are mites, who 
lodge, between two awakings, under one of the 
hairs of an elephant. Our civilization is a pretty, 

miniature toy, with which nature amuses herself for 
23 



354 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



a moment, and which presently she will break. 
You see nothing but a throng of mountains seated 
under the burning dome of heaven. They are 
ranged in an amphitheatre, like a council of im- 




movable and eternal beings. All considerations 
are overpowered by the sensation of immensity : 
monstrous ridges which stretch themselves out, 
gigantic, bony spines, ploughed flanks that drop 



*iin 



L. iJII I A 



yi 



\ 
' I'' 

If 



p 






"I I 



,1'NW I / ji 



1 ,1/ 



fi H 



f 



l( ! • 







Jj 



I' 






I I i 'I 



V 



f^l 



Chap. VII. BERGONZ.— PIC DU MIDI. 357 



down precipitously into indistinguishable depths. 
It is as though you were in a bark in the middle of 
the sea. The mountain-chains clash like billows. 
The tops are sharp and jagged like the crests of 
uplifted waves ; they come from all sides, athwart 
each other, piled one above another, bristling, in- 
numerable, and the flood of granite mounts high 
into the sky at the four corners of the horizon. 
On the north, the valleys of Luz and Argeles 
open up in the plain by a bluish vista, shining with 
a dead splendor resembling two ewers of bur- 
nished pewter. On the west the chain of Bareges 
stretches like a saw as far as the Pic du Midi, a 
huge, ragged-edged axe, marked with patches of 
snow ; on the east, lines of leaning fir-trees mount 
to the assault of the summits. In the south an 
army of embattled peaks, of ridges cut to the 
quick, squared towers, spires, perpendicular escarp- 
ments, lifts itself beneath a mantle of snow ; the 
glaciers glitter between the dark rocks ; the black 
ledges stand out with an extraordinary relief 
against the deep blue. These rude forms pain the 
eye ; you are oppressively alive to the rigidness of 
the masses of granite which have burst through the 
crust of our planet, and the invincible ruggedness 
of the rock that is lifted above the clouds. This 
chaos of violently broken lines tells of the effort 
of forces of which we have no longer any idea. 



358 THE VALLEY OE LUZ. Book III. 



Since then Nature has grown mild ; she rounds 
and softens the forms she moulds ; she embroiders 
in the valleys her leafy robe, and, as an industrious 
artist, she shapes the delicate foliage of her plants. 
Here, in her primitive barbarism, she only knew 
how to cleave the blocks and heap up the rough 
masses of her Cyclopean constructions. But her 
monument is sublime, worthy of the heaven it has 
for a vault and the sun which is its torch. 



11. 

Geology is a noble science. Upon this summit 
theories grow lively ; the arguments of the books 
breathe new life into the story of the mountains, and 
the past appears grander than the present. This 
country was in the beginning a solitary and boiling 
sea, then slowly cooled, finally peopled by living 
creatures and built up by their debris. Thus were 
formed the ancient limestones, the slates of transition 
and several of the secondary rocks. What myriads 
of ages are accumulated in a single phrase ! Time 
is a solitude in which we set up here and there our 
boundaries ; they reveal its immensity, but do not 
measure it. 

This crust cleaves, and a long wave of molten 
granite heaves itself up, forming the lofty chain of 



Chap. VII. BERGONZ.—PIC DU MIDI. 361 

the Gave, of the Nestes, the Garonne, the Mala- 
detta, Neouvielle. From here you see Neouvielle 
in the north-east. How this wall of fire worked in 
lifting itself amidst this upturned sea, the imagina- 
tion of man will never conceive. The liquid mass 
of granite formed a paste among the rocks ; the 
lower layers were changed into slate beneath the 
fiery blast ; the level grounds rose up, and were 
overturned. The subterranean stream rose with 
an effort so abrupt, that they were stuck to its 
flanks in layers almost perpendicular. " It was 
congealed in torment, and its agitation is still 
painted in its petrified waves." 

How much time rolled away between this revo- 
lution and the next ? Monuments are wanting ; 
the centuries have left no traces. There is a page 
torn out in the history of the earth. Our igno- 
rance like our knowledge overwhelms us. We see 
one infinity, and from it we divine another which 
we do not see. 

At last the ocean changed its bed, perhaps from 
the uplifting of America ; from the south-west came 
a sea to burst upon the chain. The shock fell 
upon the dark embattled barrier that you see 
towards Gavarnie. There was a frightful de- 
struction of marine animals. Their corpses have 
formed the shelly banks that you cross in mounting 
to la Breche ; several layers of la Breche, of the 



lOz 



THE VALLEY OE LUZ. 



Book III. 



Taillon and of Mont Perdu, are fields still fetid 
with death. The rolling sea, tearing up its bed, 
drifted it against the wall of rocks, piled it against 
the sides, heaped it upon the summits, set mountain 
upon mountain, covered the immense rock, and 
oscillated in furious currents in its ravacred basin. 




I seemed to see on the horizon the oozy surface 
comincr higher than the summits, liftino- its waves 
against the sky, eddying in the valleys, and howling 
above the drowned mountains like a tempest. 

That sea was bringing half of the P\-renees ; its 
raging waters overlaid the primitive declivity with 
calcareous strata, tilted and torn ; upon these the 
quieted waters deposited the high horizontal layers. 



C HAP. VI I . BER G ONZ —PIC D U MIDI. 3 6 ■ 



Yonder, in the south-west, the Vignemale is 
covered with them. In order to raise up the 
summits, eenerations of marine creatures were 
born and died silent and inert populations which 
swarmed in the warm ooze, and watched through 
their green waves the rays of the blue-tinged sun. 
They have perished along with their sepulchre ; the 
storms have torn open the banks where they had 
buried themselves, and these shreds of their wreck 
scarce tell how many myriads of centuries this 
shrouded world has seen pass away. 

One day at last, the great mountains which form 
the horizon on the south were seen to grow, Trou- 
mousse, the Vignemale, Mont Perdu, and all the 
summits that surround Geclres. The soil had 
burst open a second time. A wave of new granite 
arose, laden with the ancient granite, and with the 
prodigious mass of the limestones ; the alluvia rose 
to more than ten thousand feet ; the ancient sum- 
mits of pure granite were surpassed ; the beds of 
shells were lifted into the clouds, and the upheaved 
tops found themselves forever above the seas. 

Two seas have dwelt upon these summits ; two 
streams of burning rock have erected these chains. 
What will be the next revolution ? How lono- time 

o 

will man yet last ? h. contraction of the crust which 
bears him will cause a wave of lava to eush forth 
or will displace the level of the seas. We live be- 



364 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 

tween two accidents of the soil ; our history occu- 
pies, with room to spare, a line in the history of the 
earth ; our life depends upon a variation in the 
heat ; our duration is for a moment, and our force a 
nothinpf. We resemble the little blue foreet-me-nots 
which you pluck as you go down the slope ; their 
form is delicate, their structure admirable ; nature 
lavishes them and crushes them ; she uses all her 
industry in shaping them, and all her carelessness 
in destroying them. There is more art in them than 
in the whole mountain. Have they any ground for 
pretending that the mountain was made for them ? 



TIL 



Paul has climbed the Pic du Midi of Bigorre : 
here is his journal of the trip : — 

" Set out in the mist at four o'clock in the morn- 
ing. The pastures of Tau through the mist ; the 
mist is distinctly visible. The lake of Oncet 
throueh the mist ; same view. 

" Howker of the Five Bears. Several whitish or 
grayish spots on a whitish or grayish ground. To 
form an idea of it, look at five or six wafers, of a 
dirty white, stuck behind a leaf of blotting-paper. 

"Beginning of the steep rise; ascent at a foot- 
pace, head of one to tail of another ; this recalls to 



Chap. VIL BERGONZ.—FIC DU MIDI. 



365 



me Leblanc's riding-school, and the fifty horses ad- 
vancing gracefully in the saw-dust, each one with 
his nose against the tail of the one before him, and 
his tail against the nose of his follower, as it used to 
be on Thursdays, the school-day for going out and 
for the riding lesson. I cradle myself voluptuously 
in the poetical remembrance. 




'' First hour : view of the back of my guide and the 
hind-quarters of his horse. The guide has a vest of 
bottle-green velvet, darned in two places, on the right 
and on the left ; the horse is a dirty brown and bears 
the marks of the whip. Several big pebbles in the 
pathway. Fog. I meditate on German philosophy. 



L 



S66 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Boo i^ III. 



'' Second hour : the view enlarges ; I perceive 
the left eye of the guide's horse. That eye Is 
blind ; it loses nothing. 

"Third hour: the view broadens more. View 
of the hind-quarters of two horses and two tour- 
ists' vests fifteen feet above us. Gray vests, red 
girdles, berets. They swear and I swear ; that 
consoles us a little. 

" F"ourth hour : joy and transports ; the guide pro- 
mises me for the summit the view of a sea of clouds. 

" Arrival : view of the sea of clouds. Unhap- 
pily we are in one of the clouds. Appearance that 
of a vapor bath when one is in the bath. 

" Benefits : cold in the head, rheumatism in the 
feet, lumbago, freezing, such happiness as a man 
might feel who had danced attendance for eight 
hours in an ante-chamber without fire. 

" And this happens often ? 

" Twice out of three times. The guides swear 
it does not." 




CHAPTER VIII. 



PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



I. 



The beeches push high upon the declivities, even 
beyond three thousand feet. Their huge pillars 
strike down into the hollows where earth is 
gathered. Their roots enter into the clefts of the 
rock, lift it, and come creeping to the surface like a 
family of snakes. Their skin, white and tender in 
the plains, is changed into a grayish and solid bark ; 
their tenacious leaves shine with a vigorous green, 
beneath the sun which cannot penetrate them. 
They live isolated, because they need space, and 
range themselves at intervals one above another 
like lines of towers. From afar, between the dull 
heather, their mound rises splendid with light, and 
sounds with its hundred thousand leaves as with so 
many little bells of horn. 



368 THE VALLEY OE LUZ. Book III. 



II. 

But the real inhabitants of the mountains are the 
pines, geometrical trees, akin to the ferruginous 
blocks hewn by the primitive eruptions. The 
vegetation of the plains unfolds itself in undulating 
forms with all the graceful caprices of liberty and 
wealth. The pines, on the other hand, seem scarce- 
ly alive ; their shaft rises in a perpendicular line 
along the rocks ; their horizontal branches part 
from the trunk at right angles, equal as the radii of 
a circle, and the entire tree is a cone terminated by 
a naked spike. The dull little blades that answer 
for leaves have a melancholy hue, without trans- 
parency or lustre ; they seem hostile to the light ; 
they neither reflect it, nor allow it to pass, they 
extinguish it ; hardly does the noonday sun fringe 
them with a bluish reflection. Ten paces away, 
beneath such an aureole, the black pyramid cuts 
the horizon like an opaque mass. They crowd to- 
gether in files under their funereal mantles. Their 
forests are silent as solitudes ; the whistle of the 
wind makes there no noise ; it glides over the stiff 
beard of the leaves without stirring or rubbing 
them together. One hears no sound save the 
whispering of the tops and the shrivelling of the 
little yellowish lamels which fall in showers as soon 







THE PINES. 



Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 371 



as you touch a branch. The turf is dead, the soil 
naked ; you walk in the shade beneath an inanimate 
verdure, among pale shafts which rise like tapers. 
A strong odor fills the air, resembling the perfume 
of aromatics. The impression is that made by a 
deserted cathedral, while, after a ceremony, the 
smell of incense still floats under the arches, and 
the declining day outlines far away in the obscurity 
the forest of pillars. 

They live in families and expel the other trees 
from their domain. Often, in a wasted gorge, they 
may be seen like a mourning drapery descending 
among the white glaciers. They love the cold, 
and in winter remain clothed in snow. Spring 
does not renew them ; you see only a few green 
lines run through the foliage ; they soon grow dark 
like the rest. But when the tree springs from a 
spot of deep earth, and rises to a height of a 
hundred feet, smooth and straight as the mast of a 
ship, the mind with buoyancy follows to the very 
summit the flight of its inflexible form, and the 
vegfetable column seems as sfrand as the mountain 
which nurtures it. 

III. 

Higher up, on the barren steeps, the yellowish 
box twists its knotty feet beneath the stones. It 
is a melancholy and tenacious creature, stunted 



372 TBE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book III. 



and thrust back upon itself; overborne amidst the 
rocks, it dares not shoot upward nor spread. Its small 
thick leaves follow each other in monotonous rows, 
clumsily oval and of a formal reg-ularity. Its stem, 
short and gTayish-, is rough to the touch ; the round 
fruit encloses black capsules, hard as ebony, that 
must be broken open for the seed. Everything in 
the plant is calculated ^vith a view to utility : it 
thinks only of lasting and resisting ; it has neither 
ornaments, elegance, nor richness ; it expends its 
sap only in solid tissues, in dull colors, in durable 
hbres. It is an economical and active housewife, 
the only thing capable of vegetating iii the quag- 
mires that it fills. 

If you continue to ascend, the trees begin to fail. 
The brush-fir creeps in a carpet of turf. The 
rhododendrons grow in tufts and crown the moun- 
tain with rosy clusters. The heather crowds its 
white bunches, sniall, open, vase-shaped flowers, 
from which springs a crown of garnet stamens. In 
the sheltered hollows, the blue campanulas swing" 
their pretty bells ; the least wind lays them low ; they 
live for all that and smile, trembling and graceful. 
But, among all these flowers nourished with light 
and pure air, the most precious is the thornless 
rose. Never did petals form a frailer and lovelier 
corolla ; never did a vermilion so vivid color a more 
delicate tissue. 



Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 375 



IV. 

At the summit grow the mosses. Battered by 
the wind, dried by the • sun, they lose the fresh 
green tint they wear in the valleys and on the brink 
of the springs. They are reddened with tawny hues, 
and their smooth filaments have the reflexes of a 
wolf's fur. Others, yellowed and pale, cover with 
their sickly colors the bleeding crevices. Then 
there are gray ones, almost white, which grow like 
remnants of hair upon the bald rocks. Far away, 
upon the back of the mountain, all these tints are 
mingled, and the shaded fur emits a wild o-leam 
The last growths are reddish crusts, stuck to the 
walls of rock, seeming to form part of the stone, and 
which you might take, not for a plant, but for a 
scurf Cold, dryness, and the height have by de- 
grees transformed or killed vegetation. 



V. 



The climate shapes and produces animals as well 
as plants. 

The bear is a serious beast, a thorough moun- 
taineer, curious to behold in his great-coat of felted 
hair, yellowish or grayish in color. It seems formed 



376 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



for its domicile and its domicile for it. Its heavy 
fur is an excellent mantle against the snow. The 




mountaineers think it so good, that they borrow 
it from him. as often as they can, and he thinks it 
so ofood that he defends it a^jainst them to the best 
of his ability. He likes to live alone, and the gorges 
of the heights are as solitary as he wishes. The 
hollow trees afford him a ready-made house ; as 
these are for the most part beeches and oaks, he 
finds in them at once food and shelter, b'^or the 
rest, brave, prudent, and robust, he is an estimable 
animal ; his only faults are that he eats his little 
ones, when he runs across them, and that he is a 
poor dancer. 



Chap. VI II. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



377 




.In hunting him, they go into ambush and fire on 
him as he passes. Lately, in a battue, a superb 
female was tracked. When the foremost hunters, 
who were novices, saw the glitter of the little fierce 
eyes, and perceived the black mass descending with 
great strides, beating the underbrush, they forgot all 
of a sudden that they had guns, and kept whist be- 
hind their oak. A hundred paces further on, a 
brave fellow fired. The bear, which was not hit, 
came up on a gallop. The man, dropping his gun, 
slipped into a pit. Reaching the bottom, he felt 
of his limbs, and by some miracle found himself 
whole, when he saw the animal hesitating above 



378 



THE VALLEY OF LUZ. 



Book III. 



his head, busy in examining the slope, and pressing 
her foot upon the stones to see if they were firm. 
She sniffed here and there, and looked at the man 
with the evident intention of paying him a visit. 
The pit was a well ; if she reached the bottom, he 

must resiofn himself to a 
tete-a-tete. While the 
man reflected on this, 
and thouQ-ht of the ani- 
mal's teeth, the bear be- 
ofan to descend with in- 
finite precaution and ad- 
dress, managing her pre- 
cious person Avith great 
care, hanging on to the 
roots, slowly, but with- 
out ever stumbling. She 
was drawing near, when 
the hunters came up and 
shot her dead. 

The isard dwells above 
the bear, upon the naked 
tops, in the region of 
the glaciers. He needs space for his leaps and 
gambols. He is too lively and gay to shut him- 
self, like the heavy misanthrope, in the gorges 
and forests. No animal is more agile ; he leaps 
from rock to rock, clears precipices, and keeps 




Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



379 



his place upon points where there is just room for 
his four feet. You sometimes hear a hollow bleat- 
ing on the heights : it is a band of isards crop- 
ping the herbage amidst the snow ; their tawny 
dress and their little horns stand out in the blue of 
the heavens ; one of them gives the alarm and all 
disappear in a moment. 



VI. 



You often hear for a half-hour a tinkling of 
bells behind the mountain ; these are the herds of 
goats changing their pasture. Sometimes there 
are more than a thousand of them. You find your- 




self stopped in crossing the bridges until the whole 
caravan has filed over. They have long hanging 
hairs which form their coat ; with their black mantle 
and great beard, you would say that they were 



380 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. BooicIIJ. 



dressed for a masquerade. Their yellow eyes stare 
vaguely, with an expression of curiosity and gentle- 
ness. They seem to wonder at their walking In 
such orderly fashion on level ground. Only to look 
at that dry leg and horny foot, you feel that they are 
framed to wander at random and leap about on the 
rocks. From time to time the less disciplined ones 
stop, set their fore feet against the mountain, and 
crop a bramble or a blossom of lavender. The 
others come and push them on ; they start off 
again with a mouthful of herbage, and eat as they 
walk. All their physiognomies are Intelligent, re- 
signed and melancholy, with flashes of caprice and 
originality. You see the forest of horns waving 
above the black mass, and their smooth hair shining 
In the sun. P2normous dogs, with woolly coat, 
spotted with white, walk gravely along the sides, 
growling when you draw near. The herdsman 
comes behind in his brown cloak, with an eye fixed, 
Mitterlnof, void of thouorht, like that of the animals ; 
and the whole band disappears in a cloud of dust, 
out of which comes a sound of shrill bleating. 



VII. 

Why should not I speak of the liapplest animal 
in creation ? A great painter, Karel du Jardin, 
has taken a liking for It; he has drawn it In all 



Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



3^3 



its attitudes, and has shown all its pleasures and 
all its tastes. The rights of prose are indeed 
equal to those of painting, and I promise that 
travellers will take pleasure in considering the 
hogs. There, the word is out. Now mind that 
in the Pyrenees they are not covered with tainting 
filth, as on our farms ; they are rosy or black, well 




washed, and live upon the dry gravel, alongside 
the running waters. They make holes in the heated 
sand, and sleep there in groups of five or six, close 
set in lines, in admirable order. When any one 
draws near, the whole mass moves ; the corkscrew 
tails frisk fantastically ; two crafty, philosophic eyes 
open beneath the pendent ears; the mocking noses 
stretch forth and snuff; they all grunt in concert ; 
after which, becoming accustomed to the intrusion, 
they are quieted, they lie down again, the eyes close 



384 THE VALLEY OF LUZ. Book 111. 



in sanctimonious fashion, the tails retire into place, 
and the blessed rogues return to their digestion and 
enjoyment of the sun. All these expressive snouts 
seem to cry shame upon prejudices, and invoke en- 
joyment ; there is something reckless and derisive 
about them ; the whole countenance is directed to- 
wards the snout, and the end of the entire head is 
in the mouth. Their lengthened nose seems to 
sniff and take in from the air all agreeable sensa- 
tions. They spread themselves so complacently on 
the ground, they wag their ears with such voluptu- 
ous little movements, they utter such penetrating 
ejaculations of pleasure, that you get out of patience 
with them. Oh genuine epicureans, if sometimes in 
your sleep you deign to reflect, you ought to think, 
like the o^oose of Montaiorne, that the world was 
made for you, that man is your servant, and that 
)ou are the privileged creatures of nature. There 
is but one moment of trouble in their whole life, 
that is when they are killed. Still they pass quickly 
away and do not foresee this moment. 



VIII. 

Myriads of lizards nestle in the chinks of slate 
and in the walls of rounded pebbles. On the ap- 
proach of a passer-by, they run like a streak across 



Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 385 

the road. If you stand quiet for a moment, you see 
their Httle restless, sly heads peep out between two 
stones ; the rest of the body shows itself, the tail 
wriggles, and, with an abrupt movement, they 
climb zigzag upon the gravelly ledges. There they 
have as much sun as they please, sun to roast alive 
in ; at noon, the rock burns the hand. This power- 
ful sun heats their cold blood, and gives spring and 
action to their limbs. They are capricious, passion- 
ate, violent, and fight like men. Sometimes you 
may see two of them rolling the whole length of a 
rock, one over the other, in the dust, get up again 
dimmed and dirty, and run briskly away, like cow- 
ardly and insubordinate schoolboys taken in a 
misdeed. Some of them lose their tails in these ad- 
ventures, so that they look as if they wore a coat 
that is too short for them ; they hide, ashamed 
of being so ill dressed. Others in their gray justi- 
coats have slight, graceful motions, an air at once so 
coquettish and timid that it takes away all desire to 
harm them. When they are asleep on a slab of 
stone, you can see their whitish throat and their 
small, intelligent mouth ; but they scarcely ever sleep, 
they are always on the lookout ; they scamper off 
at the least sound, and, when nothing troubles 
them, they trot, frolic, climb up and down, make a 
hundred turns for pleasure. They love company, 

and live near or with one another. No animal is 

25 



i86 



THE VALLEY OE LUZ. 



Book 111. 



prettier or has more innocent ways ; with the 
charminor white and yellow sedum, it enlivens the 
long- walls of stone, and both live on dryness, as 
other thintr.s on moisture. 

The sun, the light, the vegetation, animals, man, 
are so many books wherein Nature has, in different 
characters, written the same thought. If the hogs 
have a clean and rosy skin, it is because the boil- 
ine ei'anite and the sea swarming; with fish have 
during millions of years accumulated and uplifted 
ten thousand feet of rock. 




BOOK IV. 

BAGNERES AND LUC HON. 




= rj_, 



CHAPTER I. 



FROM LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 

I. 

Here one must submit to long, stifling ascents; 
the horses trudge on at a foot-pace or pant; the 
travellers sleep or sweat ; the conductor grumbles 
or drinks ; the dust whirls, and, if you go out, 
your throat is parched or your eyes smart. There 
is only one way of passing the evil hour: it is to. 
tell over some old story of the country, as, for ex- 
ample, the following : — 

Bos de Benac was a good knight, a great friend 
of the king Saint Louis; he went on a crusade into 
the land of Egypt, and killed many Saracens for 



59° 



BAGN^RES AND LUCHON. Book IV, 



the salvation of his soul. But finally the French 
were beaten in a great battle, and Bos de Benac 
left for dead. He was taken away prisoner along 
the river, towards the south, into a country where 
the skin of the men was quite burned by the heat, 
and there he remained ten years. They made him 
herdsman of their flocks, and often beat him be- 
cause he was a Frank and a Christian. 




One day when he was afflicted and lamenting 
nis lot in a solitary place, he saw appear before 
him a little black man, who had two horns to his 
forehead, a goat's foot, and a more wicked air than 



Chap. 1. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE.^^9^ 

th^^n^icked of Saracens. Bos was so used to 
seeing black men, that he did not make the sign of 
the cross. It was the devil, who said, sneering, to 
him: " Bos, what good has it done thee to fight 
for thy God? He leaves thee the servant of my 
servants of Nubia ; the dogs of thy castle are better 
treated than thou. Thou art thought dead and to- 
morrow thy wife will be married. Go then to milk 
thy flock, thou good knight." 

Bos uttered a loud cry and wept, for he loved his 
wife- the devil pretended to have pity on him, and 
said to him: " I am not so bad as thy priests tell. 
Thou hast fought well ; I like brave men ; I wih do 
for thee more than thy friend, the crucified one. 
This night Shalt thou be in thy beautiful land of 
Bio-orre^ Give me in exchange a plate of nuts 
from thy table : what, there thou art embarrassed 
as a theologian ! Dost thou think that nuts have 
souls? Come, decide." 

Bos forgot that it is a mortal sin to give any- 
thing to the devil, and stretched out to him his 
hand. Immediately he was borne away as in a 
whirlwind; he saw beneath him a great yellow 
river, the Nile, which stretched out, like a snake, 
between two bands of sand ; a moment afterward, 
a city spread on the strand like a cuirass; then 
innumerable waves ranged from one end of the 
horizon to the other, and on them black vessels 



392 BA GNERES AND L UCHON. Book IV. 

like unto swallows ; further on, a triple-coasted 
island, with a hollow mountain full of fire and a 
plume of tawny smoke ; then again the sea. Night 
fell, when a ranofe of mountains lifted itself into the 
red bands of the sunset. Bos recognized the ser- 
rate tops of the Pyrenees and was filled with joy. 

The devil said to him : " Bos, come first to my 
servants of the mountain. In all conscience, since 
you return to the country, you owe them a visit. 
They are more beautiful than thy angels, and will 
love thee, since thou art my friend." 

The good knight was horrified to think that he 
was the friend of the devil, and followed him re- 
luctantly. The hand of the devil was as a vice ; he 
went swifter than the wind. Bos traversed at a 
bound the valley of Pierrefitte and found himself 
at the foot of the Bergonz, before a door of stone 
which he had never seen. The door opened of 
itself with a sound softer than a bird's song, and 
they entered a hall a thousand feet high, all of 
crystal, flaming as if the sun were inside it. Bos 
saw three little women as large as one's hand, on 
seats of agate ; they had eyes clear as the green 
waters of the Gave ; their cheeks had the vermil- 
ion of the thornless rose ; their snowy robe was as 
light as the airy mist of the cascades ; their scarf 
was of the hues of the rainbow. Bos believed he 
had seen it formerly floating on the brink of the 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 393 



precipices, when the morning fog evaporated with 
the sun's first rays. They were spinning, and 
their wheels turned so fast that they were invisible. 
They rose all together, and sang with their little 
silvery voices : " Bos is returned ; Bos is the friend 
of our master ; Bos, we will spin thee a cloak of 
silk in exchange for thy crusader's mantle." 

A moment later he was before another moun- 
tain, which he recognized by the light of the stars. 
It was that of Campana, which rings when misfor- 
tune comes upon the country. Bos found himself 
inside without knowing how it happened, and saw 
that it was hollow to the very summit. An enor- 
mous bell of burnished silver descended from the 
uppermost vault ; a troop of black goats was at- 
tached to the clapper. Bos perceived that these 
goats were devils ; their short tails wriggled con- 
vulsively ; their eyes were like burning coals ; their 
hair trembled and shrivelled like green branches on 
live coals ; their horns were pointed and crooked 
like Syrian swords. When they saw Bos. and the 
demon they came leaping around them with such 
abrupt bounds and such strange eyes that the good 
knio-ht felt his heart fail within him. Those eyes 

try 

formed cabaHstic figures, and danced after the man- 
ner of the will-o'-the-wisp in the grave-yard ; then 
they ranged themselves in single file and ran for- 
ward ; the steel clapper flew against the sounding 



394 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

wall, an immense voice came rolling- forth from the 
vibrant silver. Bos seemed to hear it in the depths 
of his brain ; the palpitations of the sound ran 
through his whole body ; he shuddered with an- 
guish like a man in delirium, and distinctly heard 
the bell chanting: "Bos has returned; Bos is the 
friend of our master ; Bos, it is not the bell of the 
church, it is I who ring thy return." 

He felt himself once more lifted into the air ; the 
trees rooted in the rock bent before his companion 
and himself as beneath a storm ; the bears howled 
mournfully ; troops of wolves fled shivering over 
the snow. Great reddish clouds flew across the 
sky, jagged and quivering like the Avings of bats. 
The evil spirits of the vallev rose up and eddied 
through the night. The heads of the rocks seemed 
alive ; the army of the mountains appeared to shake 
themselves and follow him. They traversed a wall 
of clouds and stopped upon the peak of Anie. At 
that very moment, a flash cleft the vapory mass. 
Bos saw a phantom tall as a huge pine, the face 
burning like a furnace, enveloped in red clouds. 
Violet aureoles flamed upon his head ; the light- 
ning crept at his feet in dazzling trains ; his whole 
body shone with white flashes. The thunder burst 
forth, the neighboring summit fell, the upturned 
rocks smoked, and Bos heard a mighty voice say- 
ing: " I^os has rc'turned ; Bos is the friend of our 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 



395 



master ; Bos, I illumine the valley for thy return 
better than the tapers of thy church." 

The poor Bos, bathed in a cold sweat, was sud- 







denly borne to the foot of the chateau of Benac, 
and the devil said to him : " Good knight, go now, 
find again thy wife ! " Then he began to laugh 
with a noise like the cracking of a tree, and disap- 
peared, leaving behind a smell of sulphur. 



396 



BA GNERES AND L UCHON. 



Book IV. 



Morning dawned, the air was cold, the earth 
damp, and Bos shivered under his tatters, when he 
saw a superb cavalcade draw near. Ladies in 





robes of brocade seamed with silver and pearls ; 
lords in armor of polished steel, with chains of 
gold ; noble palfreys beneath scarlet housings, con- 
ducted by pages in doublets of black velvet ; then 
an escort of men-at-arms, whose cuirasses glittered 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 397 

in the sun. It was the Sire d'Anorles cominfr to 
marry the lady of Benac. They filed slowly 
along the ascent and were buried beneath the 
darkness of the porch. 

Bos ran to the gate ; but they repelled him, say- 
ing: " Come back at noon, my good man, thou shalt 
have alms like the rest." 

Bos sat down upon a rock, tormented with grief 
and raee. Inside the castle he heard the flourish 
of trumpets and the sounds of rejoicing. Another 
was oroinor to take his wife and his a-oods ; he 
clenched his fists and revolved thoughts of 
murder ; but he had no weapons ; he determined 
to be patient, as he had so often been among the 
Saracens, and waited. 

All the poor of the neighborhood were gathered 
together, and Bos placed himself among them. 
He was not humble as the good king Saint Louis, 
who washed the feet of the beggars ; he was 
heartily ashamed of walking among these pouch- 
bearers, these maimed and halt, with crooked legs 
and bent backs, ill clad in poor, torn and patched 
cloaks, and in rags and tatters ; but he was still 
more ashamed when, in passing over the moat filled 
with clear water, he saw his burnt face, his locks 
bristling Hke the hair of a wild beast, his haggard 
eyes, his whole body wasted and bruised ; then he 
remembered that his only garment was a torn sack 



398 



BA GNERES AND L UCHON. 



Book IV. 



and the skin of a great goat, and that he was more 
hideous than the most hideous beggar. These 
cried aloud the praises of the wedded ones, while 
Bos ground his teeth with rage. 

They followed the lofty corridor, and Bos saw 
through the door the old banqueting hall. His 




arms still hung there ; he recognized the antlers of 
stags that he had shot with his bow, the heads of 
bears that he had slain with his boar-spear. The 
hall was full ; the joy of the banquet rose high 
beneath the vault ; the wine of Languedoc flowed 
generously in the cups, the guests were drinking 
the health of the betrothed. The lord of Angles 
was talking very low to the beautiful lady, who 




" STKAiNCK IMAGES ROSE IN HIS UKAIN." 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORKE. 401 

smiled and turned towards him her gentle eyes. 
When Bos saw those rosy lips smiling and the 
black eyes beaming beneath the scarlet capulet, he 
felt his heart gnawed with jealousy, bounded into 
the hall and cried out with a terrible voice : " Out of 
this, ye traitors ! I am master here, Bos de Benac." 

" Beggar and liar ! " said the lord of Angles. 
" We saw Bos fall dead on the banks of the 
Egyptian stream. Who art thou, old leper ? Thy 
face is black like those of the damned Saracens. 
You are all in league with the devil ; it is the evil 
spirit who has led thee hither. Drive him out, and 
loose the dogs upon him." 

But the tender-hearted lady begged them to 

have mercy on the unhappy madman. Bos, pricked 

by his conscience, believing that everybody knew 

his sin, fled with his face in his hands, in horror 

of himself, and stayed not until he had reached a 

solitary bog. Night came, and the bell of Mount 

Campana began to toll. He heard the wheels of 

the faeries of the Bergonz humming. The giant 

clad in fire appeared on the peak of Anie. 

Strange images, like the dreams of a sick man, rose 

in his brain. The breath of the demon was on 

him. A legion of fantastic visages galloped through 

his head to the rustle of infernal wings, and the 

ravishing smile of the lovely lady pricked him to 

the heart like the point of a poniard. The little 
26 



402 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



black man appeared near him, and said to him : 
" How, Bos, art thou not invited to the wedding of 
thy wife? The lord of Angles espouses her at this 
very hour. Friend Bos, he is not courteous ! " 

"Accursed of God, what art thou here to do ?" 

" Thou art scarcely grateful ; I have led thee 
out of Egypt, as Moses did his loafing Israelites, 
and I have transported thee, not in forty years but 
in a day, into the promised land. Poor fool, whose 
amusement is tears ! Dost thou wish thy wife ? 
Give me thy faith, nothing more. Indeed, thou 
art right ; to-morrow, if thou art not frozen, and 
if thou pleadest humbly with the lord of Angles, 
he will make thee keeper of his kennels ; it is a 
fine situation. To-night, sleep on the snow, good 
knight. Yonder, where the lights are, the lord 
of Angles embraces thy wife." 

Bos was stifling, and thought he was going to 
die. " Oh Lord my God," said he, falling on his 
knees, "deliver me from the tempter!" And he 
burst into tears. 

The devil fled, driven by this ardent prayer ; the 
liands of Bos clasped over his breast touched his 
marriage ring which he carried in his scapulary. 
He trembled with joy! "Thanks, O Lord, and 
bring me there in time." 

He ran as if he had wings, crossed the thresh- 
old at a bound, and hid himself behind a pillar 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 403 



of the gallery. The procession advanced with 
torches. When the lady was near him, Bos rose, 
took her hand and showed her the ring. She 
recognized it and threw herself into his arms. He 
turned towards those who were present and said : 
" I have suffered like our Saviour, and like Him 
been denied. Men of Bigorre, who have maltreated 
and denied me, I pray that you will be my friends 
as of old." 

On the morrow Bos went to pour a dish of nuts 
into a black orulf, where often was heard the voice 
of the devil ; after that he left to confess himself to 
the pope. On his return he became a hermit in a 
cavern of the mountain, and his wife a nun in a 
convent at Tarbes. Both piously did penance, 
and were worthy after their death to behold God. 




404 



BAGNkRES AND LUCHON. Bcjoic IV. 



II. 



A LITTLE beyond Loiirdes begins the plain, and 





the sky opens out over an immense space : the 
azure dome grows pale toward the edges, and its 
tender blue, graded down by insensible shades, 
loses itself on the horizon in an exquisite white- 



ness. These colors, so pure, so rich, so sweetly 
blended, are like a great concert where one finds 
himself enveloped in harmony ; the light comes 
from all sides ; the air is penetrated with it, the 
blue vault sparkles from the dome to the very 
horizon. Other objects are forgotten ; you are 
absorbed in a single sensation ; you cannot help 
enjoying this unchangeable serenity, this profusion 
of brightness, this overflowing of golden, gushing 
light playing in limitless space. This sky of the 
south corresponds to but one state of the soul, joy ; 
it has but one thought, one beauty, but it gives rise 
to the conception of full and durable happiness ; it 
sets in the heart a spring of gayety ever ready to 
flow ; man in this country ought to wear life lightly. 
Our northern skies have a deeper and more varied 
expression ; the metallic reflections of their chang- 
ing clouds accord with the troubled souls ; their 
broken light and strange shadings express the sad 
joy of melancholy passions ;, they touch the heart 
more deeply and with a keener stroke. But blue 
and white are such lovely hues ! From here the 
north seems an exile ; you would never have 
thought that two colors could give so much 
pleasure. They vanish into each other, like 
pleasant sounds that grow into harmony and are 
blended together. The distant white softens the 
garish light and imprisons it in a haze of thickened 



4o6 



£A GNEKES AND L UCHON. 



Book IV. 



air. The azure of the dome deadens the rays 
under its dark tint, reflects them, breaks them, 
and seems strewn with spangles of gold. This 
glitter in the sky, these horizons drowned in a 
misty zone, this transparence of the infinite air. 
this depth of a heaven without clouds, is worth as 
much as the sight of the mountains. 



III. 



Tarbes is a good-sized city that looks like a 




market town, paved with small stones, mediocre in 
appearance. You alight in a place where great 
dusty elms make a shade. At noon the streets are 
empty ; it is evident that you are near the sun of 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 407 



Spain. A few women merely, with red foulards on 
the head, were selling- peaches at the corners. A 
little further on some cavalry soldiers stretched their 
great awkward legs in the narrow shadow of their 
wall. You run across a square of four buildings, in 
the midst of which rises a bell-tower flaring at the 
base. It is the church ; it has but a single aisle, 
very high, very broad, very cool, painted in dark 
colors, which contrast with the stifling heat outside 
and the glare of the white walls; above the altar, 
six columns of mottled marble, surmounted with a 
baldachin, make a pretty effect. The pictures are 
like those everywhere else: A Christ, mingled fresh 
butter and pale rose in hue, a passion in colored 
engravings at six sous each. A few, hung very high 
in dark corners, seem better because you can 
make nothing out of them. A little further on 
they have just built a court-house, clean and new as 
a judge's robe ; the ashler work is well dressed, and 
the walls perfectly scraped. The front is adorned 
with two statues : Justice, who looks like a fool, 
and Force, who looks like a girl. Force has on 
low boots and the skin of an animal. Instead of 
fine statues we have ugly riddles. Since they had 
a fancy for symbols, could they not have dressed 
Force as a policeman ? To compensate ourselves 
for the statues, we went to visit the horses. In this 
place, the homely city becomes an elegant city. 



4o8 BAGNkKES AND LUCHON. Booic 1\^ 



The buildings of the stud are simple and in good 
taste. Turf, rosebushes, stairways filled with 
flowers, a beautiful meadow of high grass ; in the 
distance are poplars ranged as a screen to the 
limpid horizon. The habitation of the horses is a 
pleasure-house. There are fifty beasts in a long 
stable that might serve at need for a ball-room ; 
they are superb creatures with shining coats, firm 
croup, gentle eye, calm front: they feed peaceably 
in their stalls, having a double mat under their 
litter ; everything is brushed, wiped, rubbed. 
Grooms in red vests come and go incessantly to 
clean them and see that nothing is wanting. Man 
in the earthly paradise was less happy. 



IV. 

Poor mankind has no city which is not lull of 
lamentable memories. The Protestants took this 
one in 1570 and butchered all the inhabitants. One 
of them had taken refuge in a tower whose only 
ascent was by a narrow staircase ; they sent one 
of his friends, who called to him under pretext 
of a parley ; no sooner had he put his head at 
the window than he was killed by an arquebu- 
sade. The peasants who came to give burial to 
the dead interred two thousand of them in the 



Chap. I. LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 409 

ditches. Five years after, the country was almost 
a desert. 

Patience ! the Cathohcs were no gentler than 
the Protestants ; witness that siege of Rabastens, 
twelve miles distant from Tarbes. 

"Suddenly," says Montluc, "I saw that others 
besides our foot soldiers should have a hand here, 
and said to the nobility : ' Gentlemen, my friends, 
follow boldly, and give, and be not wonder-struck ; 
for we could not choose a more honorable death.' 
And so we all marched with as good a will as ever 
I saw in my life to the assault, and I twice looked 
back ; I saw that all were closed up so as to touch 
one another. I had caused three or four ladders 
to be carried to the brink of the moat, and as I 
turned backward to order them to bring up two 
ladders, a volley was given me in the face from the 
corner of a barricade which adjoined the tower. I 
was suddenly covered with blood, for I bled from 
the mouth, nose and eyes. Then almost all the 
soldiers, and nearly all the nobles too, began to be 
affrighted and would retreat. But I cried out to 
them, although I could scarcely speak for the quan- 
tity of blood which gushed from my mouth and 
nose : * Where will you go ? Will you be fright- 
ened on my account? Do not stir, and do not 
abandon the fight.' And said to the nobles, ' I am 
going to get my wounds dressed : let no one follow 



4IO BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV 



me, and avenge me as you love me.' I took a 
nobleman by the hand, and so was led to my lodg- 
ing, where I found a surgeon of M. de Goas' regi- 
ment, named Maitre Simon, who dressed my wound 
and pulled out the bones from both cheeks with his 
two fingers, so large were the holes, and cut off 
much flesh from my face, Avhich was covered with 
wounds. 

" Here now is M. de Madaillan, my lieutenant, 
who was at my side when I went to the charge, and 
M. de Goas on the other, who was come to see 
if I were dead, and said to me : * Rejoice, monsieur, 
take couraee, we are inside. There are the soldiers 
with hands that kill everybody ; be assured then 
that we will avenge your wound.' Then I said to 
him : ' I praise God, because I see that victory is 
ours before I die. At present I feel no concern 
at dying. I beg you will go back, and show me all 
the affection you have borne me, and take care that 
110 one escapes an killed. 

" And immediately he went away, and even my 
servants all went ; so that there remained along with 
me only two pages, and the advocate de Las and 
the surgeon. They wanted to save the minister 
and the captain of the garrison, named Ladous, so 
as to have them hung before my quarters. But the 
soldiers had nearly killed them themselves, and took 
them away from those who held them and tore 



them into a thousand pieces. The soldiers made 
fifty or sixty who had withdrawn into the great 
tower, leap from the top into the moat, and these 
were drowned. It turns out that two who had hid- 
den themselves were saved. There was a certain 
prisoner who wanted to give four thousand crowns. 
But never a man would hear of any ransom, and 
most of the women were killed." 

With such fits of madness how has the human 
race managed to endure? "In vain you drain it," 
says Mephistopheles, "the fresh spring of living 
blood forever reappears." 




.^5-- 









CHAPTER II. 



BA GNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 



I. 



You set out for Bagneres at five o'clock in the 
afternoon, in the dust and amidst a train of coucous 
laden with people. The road is blocked, like the 
roads in the suburbs of Paris on a Saturday evening. 
The diligence, in passing, takes up as many peas- 
ants as it meets ; they are put in heaps under the 
tilt, among the trunks, alongside the dogs; they 
seem proud and pleased with their lofty place. 
Legs, arms and heads, dispose themselves as best 
they can ; they sing, and the coach appears like a 
music-box. It is in this triumphal equipage that 
you reach Bagneres, after sunset. You dine in 
haste, are taken to the Promenade des Cotistoiis, and 
find, to your utter surprise, the Boulevard de Gand 
among the Pyrenees. 



Chap. II. BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 41^ 



Four rows of dusty trees ; regular benches at 
equal intervals ; on both sides, hotels of modern 
aspect, one of which is occupied by M. de Roth- 
schild ; rows of illuminated shops, of cafes chantants 
surrounded by crowds ; terraces filled with seated 
spectators ; upon the roadway, a black throng 
streaming under the lights. Such is the spectacle 
beneath your eyes. The groups form, dissolve, 
close up ; you follow the crowd ; you learn again 
the art of getting on without stepping on the feet 
of those you meet, of grazing everybody without 
elbowing anybody ; of not getting crushed and of 
not crushing others ; in short, all the talents taught 
by civilization and the asphaltum. You meet again 
with the rusde of dresses, the confused hum of con- 
versations and steps, the offensive splendor of arti- 
ficial lights, the obsequious and wearied faces of 
traffic, the skilful display of the shops, and all the 
sensations you wanted to leave behind. Bagneres- 
de-Bip-orre and Luchon are in the Pyrenees the 
capitals of polite life, the meeting place of the 
pleasures of the world and of fashion— Paris, six 
hundred miles away from Paris. 

The next morning, in the sunlight, the aspect of 
the city is charming. Great alleys of old trees 
cross it in every direction. Little gardens bloom 
upon the terraces. The Adour rolls along by the 
houses. Two streets are islands connected with 



414 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

the highway by bridges laden with oleanders, and 

their green windows are mirrored in the clear wave. 

Streamlets of limpid water run from all the open 

places and all the streets ; they cross, dive under 

ground, reappear, and the city is filled w^th their 

murmurs, their coolness, and their gayety. A little 

girl, seated upon a slab of slate, bathes her feet in 

the current ; the cold water reddens them, and the 

poor litde thing tucks up her worn gown with great 

care, for fear of wetting it. '' A woman on her knees 

is washing linen at her door ; another bends over 

and draws water for her saucepan. The two 

black and shining trenches hedge in the white road, 

like two bands of jet. In the inner court or in the 

vestibule of each house the assembled women sew 

and spin, some on the steps of the stairway, others 

at the feet of a villc ; they are in the shade, but on 

the crest of the wall the beautiful green leaves are 

traversed by a ray of sunlight. 

In the neighboring place, some men ranged in 
two lines were threshing wheat with long poles and 
heaping up masses of golden grain. Under its 
borrowed luxury the city preserves some rustic cus- 
toms ; but the rich light blends the contrasts, and 
th(; threshing of the wheat has the splendor of 
a ball. Inirther on arc some buildings where the 
stream works the marbles. Slabs, blocks, piles of 
chips, shapeless material, fill the court for a length 



Chap. 11. BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 415 



of three hundred paces, among clusters of rose- 
bushes, flowery borders, statues, and kiosks. In 
the workshops, heavy gearings, troughs of muddy 
water, rusty saws, huge wheels — these are the 
workmen. In the storerooms, columns, capitals of 
an admirable polish, white chimney-pieces bor- 
dered with leaves in relief, carved vases, sculp- 
tured basins, trinkets of agate — that is the work. 
The quarries of the Pyrenees have, all of them, 
given a specimen to panel the walls ; it is a library 
of marbles. There are white ones like alabaster, 
rosy like living flesh, brown speckled like a guinea 
fowl's breast — the Griotte is of a blood-red. The 
black Baudean, veined with white threads, emits 
a greenish reflection. The Ronce de Bise furrows 
its fawn-colored dress with dark bands. The 
grayish Sarrancolin has a peculiar glitter, is marked 
all over with scales, striped with pale tints, and 
stained with a broad blood-red spot. Nature is 
the greatest of painters ; her infiltrations and 
subterranean fires could alone have invented this 
profusion of shades and patterns : it needed the 
audacious originality of chance and the slow toil of 
the mineral forces, to turn lines so capricious and 
assort tints so complex. 

A stream of swift water rolls beneath the work- 
shops ; another glides in front of the house, in a 
lovely meadow, under a screen of poplars. In the 



4i6 



BA GNERES AND L UCHON. 



Book IV. 



pale distance you see the mountains. It is a fortu- 
nate spot considering that it is a sawer of stone. 



II. 

The bathing-house is a beautiful white building, 
vast and regular ; the long front, quite unornament- 
ed, is of a very simple form. This architecture, akin 
to the antique, is more beautiful in the south than 
in the north ; like the sky, it leaves in the mind an 
impression of serenity and grandeur. 

A half of the river washes the fagade, and pre- 
cipitates under the entrance bridge its black sheet 
bristling with sparkling weaves. You enter into 
a oTeat vestibule, follow a huo-e staircase with 
double balustrade, then corridors ending in noble 
porticos and commanding the terraces. Bathing 
rooms panelled with marble, a verdant garden, fine 
points of view everywhere, high vaults, coolness, 
simple forms, soft hues that rest the eye and con- 
trast with the crude, dazzling light, that out of doors 
falls on the dusty place and the white houses ; all 
attracts, and it is a pleasure to be ill here. 

The Romans, a people as civilized and as bored 
as we, did as we do, and came to P)agneres. The 
inhabitants of the country, good courtiers, con- 
structed, on the public place, a temple in honor of 
Augustus. The temple became a church that was 



Chap. II. BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 417 



dedicated to St. Martin, but retained the pagan in- 
scription. In 1 64 1, they removed the inscription 
to above the fountain of the southern entrance, 
where it still is. 

In 1823, they discovered on the site of the bath- 
house, columns, capitals, four piscinae cased with 
marbles and adorned with mouldings, and a large 
number of medals with effigies of the first Roman 
emperors. These remains, found after a lapse of 
eighteen centuries, leave a deep impression, like 
that one experiences in measuring the great lime- 
stone beds, antediluvian sepulchres of buried races. 
Our cities are founded upon the ruins of extinct 
civilizations, and our fields on the remains of sub- 
verted creations. 

'Rome has left its trace everywhere at Bagneres. 
The most agreeable of these souvenirs of antiquity 
are the monuments which those who had been 
healed erected in honor of the Nymphs, and whose 
inscriptions still remain. Lying in the baignoires 
of marble, they felt the virtue of the beneficent god- 
dess penetrating their limbs ; with eyes half-closed, 
dozing in the soft embrace of the tepid water, they 
heard the mysterious spring dripping, dripping with 
a song, from the recesses of the rock, its mother ; 
the outpoured sheet shone about them with dim, 
greenish reflexes, and before them passed like a 

vision the strange eye and magic voice of the un- 
27 



41 8 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



known divinity, who came to the Hght in order to 

bring health to hapless mortals. 

Behind the bath-house is a high hill, covered 
with admirable trees, where wind sequestered walks. 
Thence you see under your feet the city, whose 
slated roofs reflect the powerful light of the burning 
sky and stand out in the limpid air with a tawny 
and leaden hue. A line of poplars marks on the 
great green plain the course of the river ; towards 
Tarbes it strikes endlessly into the vaporous 
distance, amidst tender hues. Opposite, wooded 
and cultivated hills rise, round-topped, to the very 
horizon. On the right, the mountains, like so many 
pyramids, descend in long regular quoins. These 
hills and mountains cut out a sinuous line on the 
radiant border of the sky. From the white and 
smiling horizon, the eye mounts by insensible 
shades to the deep burning blue of the dome. 
This whiteness imparts a tender and delicious sen- 
sation, mingling of revery and pleasure ; it touches, 
troubles and delights, like the song of Cherubino 
in Mozart. A fresh Avind comes from the valley ; 
the body is as comfortable as the mind ; one finds 
in his nature a harmony hitherto unknown ; he no 
longer bears the weitrht of his thouerht or of his 
mechanism ; he does nothing but feel ; he becomes 
thoroughly animal, that is to say, perfectly happy. 

In the evening we walk in the plain. There are 



Chap. II. 



BA GNERES-DE-BIGORRE. 



419 



in the fields of maize retired paths where one is 
alone. The tops, seven feet high, form, as it were, 
a copse of trees. The great sheaf of green leaves 
ends in slender little columns of rosy grains, and 
the slanting sun slips its arrows of gold among the 
stalks. You find meadows cut by streams which 
the peasants dam up, and which, for several hours, 
overflow to refresh the fields. The day declines, 
the huge shadow of the mountains darkens the ver- 
dure ; clouds of insects hum in the heavy air. The 
whisper of an expiring breeze makes the leaves to 
shiver for a moment. Meanwhile the carriaofes and 
the cavalcades return on all the roads, and the 
courts are illuminated for the evening promenade. 




CHAPTER III. 



THE PEOPLE. 



I. 



Everybody agrees that life at watering-places 
is very poetic, abounding in adventures of every 
sort, especially adventures of the heart. Read the 
novels L' Anncaii ({Argent of Charles de Bernard, 
George Sand's Lavinia, etc. 

If watering-place life is a romance, it is in the books 
that it is so. To see great men in these places, 
you must carry them bound in calf in your trunk. 

It is equally agreed that conversation at watering- 
places is extremely brilliant, that you meet only 
artists, superior men, people of the great world ; 
that ideas, grace and elegance are lavished there, 
and that the flower of all pleasures and all thought 
there comes into bloom. 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 421 



The truth is that you use up a great many hats, 
eat a great many peaches, say a great many words, 
and, in the matter of men and of ideas, you find 
very much what you find elsewhere. 

Here is the catalogue of a salon better made "up 
than many another : 

An old nobleman, somewhat resembling Balzac's 
M. de Mortsauf, an officer previous to 1830, very 
brave, and capable of reasoning exactly, when he 
was hard pushed. He had a great long cartilagi- 
nous neck, that turned all together and with diffi- 
culty, like a rusty machine ; his feet shook about 
in his square-toed shoes ; the skirts of his frock-coat 
hung like flags about his legs. His body and his 
clothes were stiff, awkward, old-fashioned and scant, 
like his opinions ; a dotard, moreover, fastidious, 
peevish, busy all day long in sifting over nothings 
and complaining about trifles ; he pestered his 
servant a whole hour about a grain of dust over- 
looked on the skirt of his coat, explaining the 
method of removing dust, the danger of leaving 
dust, the defects of a negligent spirit, the merits 
of a diligent spirit, with so much monotony and 
tenacity and so slowly, that at last one stopped up 
one's ears or went to sleep. He took snuff, rested 
his chin on his cane, and looked straight ahead with 
the torpid, dull expression of a mummy. Rustic 
life, the want of conversation and action, the fixed- 



422 



BA GNERES AND L UCHON. 



Book W. 




ness of mechanical habits, had 
extinguished him. 

Beside him sat an Enghsh girl 
and her mother. The young 
woman had not succeeded in 
extinguishing herself, she was 
frozen at her birth ; however, 
she was motionless as he. She 
carried a jeweller's shop on her arms, bracelets, 
chains, of every form and 
all metals, which hung and 
jingled like little bells. The 
mother was one of those 
hooked stalks of asparagus, 
knobby, stuck into a swelling 
gown, such as can flourish 
and come to seed only amidst the fogs of London. 
They took tea and only talked with each other. 

In the third place one re- 
marked a very noble young 
man, dressed to perfection, 
curled every day, with soft 
hands, forever washed, brush- 
ed, adorned and beautified, 
and handsome as a doll. 
His was a formal and seri- 
-'- •--'-— --^;-~- ~ Qys self-conceit. His least 
actions were of an admirable correctness and gra- 





Chap. III. 



THE PEOPLE. 



423 



vity. He weighed every word when he asked for 
soup. He put on his gloves with the air of a 
Roman emperor. He never laughed ; in his calm 
gestures )^ou recognized a man penetrated with 
self-respect, who raises conventionalities into prin- 
ciples. His complexion, his hands, his beard, and 
his mind, had been so scoured, rubbed, and per- 
fumed by etiquette, that 
they seemed artificial. 

Ordinarily he gave the 
cues to a Moldavian lady, 
who kept the conversation 
alive. This lady had tra- 
velled all over Europe, and 
related her travels in such a 
piercing and metallic voice, 
that you wondered if she 
had not a clarion some- 
where in her body. She held forth unassisted, 
sometimes for a quarter of an hour together, 
principally about rice and the degree of civili- 
zation among the Turks, on the barbarism of 
the Russian generals, and on the baths of Con- 
stantinople. Her well-filled memory only over- 
flowed in tirades : it was almost as amusing as a 
gazetteer. 

Near her was a pale, slender, meagre Spaniard, 
with a face like a knife-blade. We knew, by some 




424 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



words he let fall, that he was rich and a republican. 
He spent his life with a newspaper in his hand, — he 
read twelve or fifteen of them in a day, with little 
dry, jerking movements, and nervous contractions 
that passed over his face like a shiver. He sat 
habitually in a corner, and you saw gleaming in his 
countenance feeble desires of proclamations and 
professions of faith. In the very same moment his 
glance died away like a too sudden fire that blazes 
up and falls again. He only spoke in monosyllables, 
and to ask for tea. His wife knew no French, and 
sat all the evening motionless in her arm-chair. 

Must we speak of an old lady from Saumur, a 
frequenter of the baths, watchful of the heat, the 
cold, the currents of air, the seasoning, determined 
not to enrich her heirs any sooner than it Avas ne- 
cessary, who trotted about all day, and played with 
her dog in the evening ? Of an abbe and his pupil, 
who dined apart, to es- 
cape the contagion of 
worldly conversation ? 
etc. The truth is that 
there is nothing to 
paint, and that in the 
next restaurant you will 
see the same people. 

Now, in good faith, what can be the conversation 
in such a society ? As the answer is important, I 




K>f- 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 425 

beg the reader to run over the subjoined classifica- 
tion of interesting conversations ; he will judge for 
himself as to the likelihood of meeting at a watering- 
place with anything similar. 

First sort : Circumlocutions, oratorical argumen- 
tation, exordiums full of insinuation, smiles and bows, 
which may be translated by the following phrase : 
" Monsieur, help me to make a thousand francs." 

Second sort : Periphrases, metaphysical disquisi- 
tions, the voice of the soul, gestures and genu- 
flexions, ending in this phrase : " Madame, allow 
me to be your very humble servant." 

Third sort : Two persons who have need of 
each other are together ; abstract of their conversa- 
tion : " You are a great man." " And so are you." 

Fourth sort : You are seated at the fireside with 
an old friend ; you stir up the embers and talk of — • 
no matter what, for instance : " Would you like some 
tea? My cigar is out." Or, what is better, you 
say nothing at all, and listen to the singing of the 
tea-kettle ; all actions, which mean : " You are a 
good fellow, and would do me a service in case of 
need." 

Fifth sort : New general ideas and freely ex- 
pressed ; sort lost sight of these hundred years. It 
was known in the salons of the eighteenth century ; 
genus to-day fossil. 

Sixth, and last sort : Discharges of wit, fireworks 



42 6 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



of brilliant speeches, images struck out, colors dis- 
played, profusion of animation, originality and gay- 
ety. A sort infinitely rare and diminished every 
day, by the fear of compromising one's self, by the 
important air, by the affectation of morality. 

These six sorts wanting— and they are evidently 
wanting- — what remains ? Conversation such as 
Henri Monnier paints, and M. Prudhomme makes. 
Only the manners here are better ; for instance, we 
know that we ought to help ourselves last to soup, 
and first to salad ; we are provided with certain 
proper phrases which we exchange for other proper 
phrases ; we answer to an anticipated motion by an 
anticipated motion, after the fashion of the Chinese ; 
\ve come to yawn inwardly and smile outwardly, in 
company and in state. This comedy of affectations 
and the commerce of cnuui form the conversation 
at the springs and elsewhere. 

Accordingly many people go to take the air in 
the streets. 

11. 

TiiK street is full of downcast faces; lawyers, 
bankers, people tired with office work, or bored 
with having too much fortune and too little trouble. 
In the evening, they go to Frascati or watch the 
loungers who elbow each other among the shoj)s 



Chap. III. • THE PEOPLE. 427 

on the course. During the day they drink and 
bathe a httle, ride and smoke a good deal. The 
bloated patients, stretched on arm-chairs, digest 
their food ; the lean study the newspapers ; the 
young men talk with the ladies about the weather ; 
the ladies are busy in rounding their petticoats 
aright : the old, who are critics and philosophers, 
take snuff, or look at the mountains with glasses, 
to ascertain if the eno-ravinofs are exact. It is not 
worth the trouble of having so much money, merely 
to have so little pleasure. 

This emuti proves that life resembles the opera; 
to be happy there, you must have money for your 
ticket, but, also, the sentiment of music. If the 
money is wanting, you remain outside in the rain 
among the boot-blacks ; if you have no taste for 
music, you sleep sullenly in your superb box. I 
conclude that we must try to earn the four francs 
for the parterre, but above all to make ourselves 
acquainted with music. 

The promenades are too neat and recall the Bois 
de Boulogne; here and there a tired broom leans 
aeainst a tree its slantinof silhouette. From the 
depths of a thicket the sergents dc ville cast on you 
their eagle glance, and the dung decorates the 
alleys with its poetic heaps. 



An invalid always brings with him one or more 



428 



BA GNERES AND L UCHOA^. 



Book IV. 



companions. Where is the being so disinherited 
by heaven as not to have a relation or friend who 
is bored ? And where is the friend or relation so 
thankless as to refuse a service which is a pleasure 
party ? The invalid drinks and bathes ; the friend 
wears gaiters or rides, hence the species of tourists. 




This species comprises several varieties, which 
are distinguished by the song, the plumage, and the 
gait. These are the principal : 



FIRST. 



TiiK first has long legs, lean body, head bent 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 429 



forward, large and powerful feet, vigorous hands, 
excellent at grasping and holding on. It is pro- 
vided with canes, ferruled sticks, umbrellas, cloaks, 
india-rubber top-coats. It despises dress, shows 
itself but little in society, knows thoroughly guides 
and hotels. It strides over the ground in an admi- 
rable manner, rides with saddle, without saddle, in 
every way and all possible beasts. It walks for 
the sake of walking, and to have the right of 
repeating several fine, ready-made phrases. 

I found, and picked up, at Eaux-Chaudes, the 
journal of one of these walking tourists. It is 
entitled : My Impressions. 

"15th July. — Ascent of Vignemale. Set out at 
midnight, came back at ten o'clock in the evening. 
Appetite on the summit ; excellent dinner, pate, 
fowls, trout, claret, kirsch. My horse stumbled 
eleven times. Feet galled. Rondo, good guide. 
Total : sixty.-seven francs. 

" 20th July. — Ascent of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. 
Fifteen hours. Sanio, fair guide ; knows neither 
songs nor stories. Good sleep for an hour at the 
top. Two bottles broken, which rather spoiled the 
provisions. Thirty-eight francs. 

"21st July. — Excursion to the Valley of Heas. 
Too many stones in the road. Twenty-one miles. 
Must exercise every day. To-morrow will walk 
twenty-four. 



430 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

" 24th July. — Excursion to the Valley of Aspe. 
Twenty-seven miles. 

"1st August. — Lake of Oo. Good water, very 
cold ; the bottles were well cooled. 

" 2d August. — Valley of the Arboust. Met three 
caravans ; two of donkeys, one of horses. Thirty 
miles. Throat raw. Corns on the feet. 

"■ 3d August. — Ascent of the Maladetta. Three 
days. Sleep at the Rencluse de la Maladetta. 
My large double cloak with the fur collar keeps me 
from being frozen. In the morning I make the 
omelette myself. Punch with snow. Second night 
in the Vale of Malibierne. Passage of the Gla- 
cier. My right shoe gets torn. Arrival at the 
summit. View of three bottles left by the preced- 
ing- tourists. For amusement, I read a number of 
the JoiLrnal dcs Chasseurs. On my return, I am 
entertained by the guides. Bagpipes in the evening 
at my door ; great bouquet with a ribbon. Total : 
one hundred and sixty-eight francs. 

" 15th August. — Leave the Pyrenees. Three 
hundred and ninety-one leagues in a month, on 
foot as well as on horse and in carriage. Eleven 
ascents, eighteen excursions. I have used up two 
ferruled sticks, a top-coat, three pairs of trousers, 
five pairs of shoes. Good year. 

" P. S.— Sublime country. My spirit bows be- 
neath these great emotions." 



I I Hill 11 I Ml 




THE LAC DOO. 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 433 



SECOND. 



The second variety comprises thoughtful metho- 
dical people, generally wearing spectacles, endowed 
with a passionate confidence in the printed letter. 
You know them by the guide-book, which they 
always carry in their hand. This book is to them 
the law and the prophets. They eat trout at the 
place named in the book, make all the stops ad- 
vised by the book, dispute with the innkeeper when 
he asks more than is marked in the book. You 
see them at the remarkable points with their eyes 
fixed on the book, filling themselves with the de- 
scription, and informing themselves exacdy of the 
sort of emotion which it is proper to feel. On the 
eve of an excursion, they study the book and learn 
in advance the order and connection of the sensa- 
tions they ought to experience: first, surprise; a 
little further on a tender impression ; three miles be- 
yond, chilled with horror ; finally a calm sensibility. 
They do and feel nothing but with documents 
in hand and on good authority. On reaching a 
hotel, their first care is to ask their neighbor at 
the table if there is any place of reunion ; at what 
hour people meet there ; how the different hours of 
the day are filled up; what walk is taken in the 
afternoon ; what other in the evening. The next 



434 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



day they follow all these directions conscientiously. 
They are clad in watering-place fashion ; they 
change their dress as many times as the custom of 
the places deems proper ; they make all the excur- 
sions they ought to make at the necessary hour, in 




the proper equipage. Have they any taste ? It is 
impossible to say ; the book and public opinion 
have thought and decided for them. They have 
the consolation of thinking that they have walked 
in the broad road and are imitators of the human 
kind. These are the docile toiwists. 

THIRD. 

The third variety walks in troops and makes its 
excursions by families. You see from afar a great 



Chap. III. 



THE PEOPLE. 



435 




peaceable cavalcade ; father, mother, two daugh- 
ters, two tall cousins, one 
or two friends and some- 
times donkeys for the 
little boys. They beat 
the donkeys, which are 
restive ; they advise the 
fiery youths to be pru- 
dent ; a glance retains 
the young ladies about 
the green veil of the 
mother. The distinctive 
traits of this variety are 
the green veil, the bour- 
geois spirit, the love of siestas and meals on the 
grass ; an unfailing sign is the taste for little social 
games. This variety is rare at Eaux-Bonnes, more 
common at Bagneres de Bigorre and at Bagneres 
de Luchon. It is remarkable for its prudence, 
its culinary instincts, its economical habits. The 
individuals making the excursion stop at a spot 
selected the day before ; they unload pates and 
bottles. If they have brought nothing, they go and 
knock at the nearest hut for milk ; they are aston- 
ished at having to pay three sous a glass for it : 
they find that it strongly resembles goat's milk, and 
they say to each other, after they have drunken, 
that the wooden spoon was not over-clean. They 



436 



BA GNERES AND L UCHON. 



Book IV 



look curiously at the dark stable, half underground, 
where the cows ruminate on beds of heather ; after 
which, the great fat men seat themselves or lie 
down. The artist of the family draws out his 
album and copies a bridge, a mill, and other album 
views. The young girls run and laugh, and let 
themselves drop out of breath upon the grass ; the 
young men run after them. This variety, indige- 
nous in the great cities, in Paris above all, wishes to 
revive among the Pyrenees the pleasure parties 
of Meudon or Montmorency. 

FOURTH. 

Fourth kind : dining tourists. At Louvie, a family 




from Carcassonne, father, mother, son, daughter 
and servant, ali^rhted from the interior. For the 
first time in their life they were undertaking a 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 437 

pleasure trip. The father was one of those florid 
bourgeois, pot-belhed, important, dogmatic, well- 
clad in fine cloth, carefully preserved, who educate 
their cooks, arrange their house en bonbonniere, 
and establish themselves in their comfort, like an 
oyster in its shell. They entered stupefied into a 
dark dining-room, where the half-empty bottles 
strayed among the cooling dishes. The cloth was 
soiled, the napkins of a doubtful white. The father, 
indignant, asked for a cup of tea, and began walk- 
ing up and down with a tragic air. The rest looked 
at each other mournfully and sat down. The dishes 
came helter-skelter, all of them failures. Our Car- 
cassonne friends helped themselves, turned the 
meat over on their plates, looked at it, and did not 
eat. They ordered tea a second time ; the tea did 
not appear ; the travellers were called for the coach, 
and the landlord demanded twelve francs. With- 
out saying a word, with a gesture of concen- 
trated horror, the head of the family paid. Then, 
approaching his wife, he said to her: " It was your 
wish, madam ! " A quarter of an hour later the 
storm burst forth : he poured his complaint into the 
bosom of the conductor. He declared that the 
company would fail if it changed horses at such a 
poisoner's ; he trusted that disease would soon carry 
off such dirty people. They told him that every- 
body in the country was so, and that they lived 



438 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



happily for eighty years. He raised his eyes to 
heaven, repressed his grief, and directed his thoughts 
toward Carcassonne. 



FIFTH. 

Fifth variety ; rare : lea^'ued totirists. 
One day, at the foot of a damp rock, I saw a 
Httle lean man coming toward me, with a nose like 




\-Zfo^-. v^ \ j^ 

an eagle's beak; a hatchet face, green eyes, griz- 
zling locks, nervous, jerky movements, and some- 
thing quaint and earnest in his countenance. He 
had on huee gaiters, an old black, rain-beaten 
cap, trousers spattered to the knee with mud, a 
botanical case full of dents on his back, and in his 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 439 

hand a small spade. Unfortunately I was looking 
at a plant with long, straight, green stalk, and white, 
delicate corolla, which grew near some hidden 
springs. He took me for a raw fellow-botanist. 
" Ah, here you are, gathering plants ! What, by 
the stalk, clumsy ? What will it do in your her- 
barium without roots ? Where is your case ? your 
weeder ? " 

"But, sir — " 

'' Common plant, frequent in the environs of 
Paris, Paniassia palustris : stem simple, erect, a 
foot in height, glabrous, radical leaves petiolate 
(sheathing caulis, sessile), cordiform, entirely gla- 
brous ; simple flower, white, terminal, the calix 
with lanceolate leaves, petals rounded, marked 
Math hollow lines, nectaries ciliate and furnished 
with yellow globules at the extremity of the cilia 
resembling pistils ; helleboraceous. Those nec- 
taries are curious ; good study, plant well chosen. 
Courage! you'll get on." 

" But I am no botanist ! " 

"Very good, you are modest. However, since 
you are in the Pyrenees, you must study the flora 
of the country ; you will not find another such op- 
portunity. There are rare- plants here which you 
should absolutely carry away. I gathered near 
Oleth, the Menziesra Daboeci, an inestimable god- 
send. I will show you at the house the Ramondia 



440 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

Pyrenaica, solanaceous with the aspect of the prim- 
rose. I scaled Mont Perdu to find the Ranunculus 
parnassifolius mentioned by Ramond, and which 
grows at a height of 2,700 metres. Hah ! what is 
that ! the Aquilcgia Pyrenaica ! " 

And my Httle man started off Hke an isard, clam- 
bered up a slope, carefully dug the soil about the 
flower, took it up, without cutting a single root, and 
returned with sparkling eyes, triumphant air, and 
holding it aloft like a banner. 

*' Plant peculiar to the Pyrenees. I have long 
wanted it ; the specimen is excellent. Come, my 
young friend, a slight examination : you don't know 
the species, but you recognize the family ? " 
"Alas! I don't know a word of botany." 
He looked at me stupefied. "And why do you 
gather plants ? " 

" To see them, because they are pretty." 
He put his flower into his case, adjusted his cap, 
and went off without addino- another word. 

o 

SIXTH. 

Sixth variety ; very numerous : sedentary tourists. 
They gaze on the mountains from their windows ; 
their excursions consist in going from their room 
to the English garden, from the English garden to 
the promenade. They take a siesta upon the heath, 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 44^ 



and read the journal stretched on a chair; after 
which they have seen the Pyrenees. 



SEVENTH. 



There was a grand ball yesterday. Paul pre- 
sented there a young Creole from Venezuela in 
America ; the young man has as yet seen nothing ; 
he has just left ship at Bordeaux, whence he comes 
here ; a very fine fellow, however, of a fine, olive 
complexion; great hunter, and better fitted for 
frequenting mountains than drawing-rooms. He 
comes to France to form himself, as they say ; Paul 
pretends that it is to be deformed. 

We have taken our place in a corner, and the 
young man has asked Paul to define to him a ball. 

" A great funereal and penitential ceremony." 

" Pshaw ! " 

" No doubt of it, and the custom goes back a 

long way." 

-Indeed?" 

"Back to Henry III. who instituted assemblies 
of flagellants. The men of the court bared their 
backs, and met together to lash one another over 
the shoulders. Nowadays there is no longer any 
whipping, but the sadness is the same. All the 
men who are here come to expiate great sins or 
have just lost their relations." 



442 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

" That is the reason why they are dressed in 
black." 

" Precisely." 

" But the ladies are in magnificent dresses." 

" They mortify themselves only the better for 
that. Each one has hung around the loins a sort 
of haircloth, that horrible load of petticoats which 
hurts them and finally makes them ill. This is 
after the example of the saints, the better to work 
out salvation." 

" But all the men are smiling." 

"That is the finest thing about it; cramped as 
they are, shut up in their winding-sheet of black 
cloth. They impose restraint on themselves, and 
give proof of virtue. Go forward six steps, you 
will see." 

The young man advanced ; not yet used to the 
movements of a drawing-room, he stepped on the 
feet of a dancer and smashed the hat of a melan- 
choly gentleman. He returned, covered with con- 
fusion, to hide himself beside us. 

" What did your two poor devils say to you ? " 

" I don't at all understand. The first, after an 
involuntary wry face, looked at me amiably. The 
other put his hat under his other arm and bowed." 

" Humility, resignation, a wish to suffer in order 
to enhance their merits. Under Henry III. they 
thanked him who had strapped them the best. I 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 443 

will make a musician talk; listen. Monsieur 
Steuben, what quadrille are you playing there?" 

" LEnfer, a fantastic quadrille. It is the legend 
of a young girl carried off alive in the clutches of 
the devil." 

" It is, indeed ? " 

"Very expressive. The finale expresses her 
cries of grief and the howling of the demons. The 
young girl makes the air, the demons the bass." 

" And you play after that ? " 

" Some contra-dances on di tanti palpitiy 

" Won't you please give me the idea of that air." 

" It is at the return of Tancred. The point is 
to paint the most touching sadness." 

" Excellent choice. And no mazurkas, no 

waltzes ? " 

" Presently ; here is a great book of Chopin ; he 
is our favorite. What a master ! What fever ! what 
cries, sorrowful, uncertain, broken! All these 
mazurkas make one want to weep." 

" That is why they are danced ; you see, my dear 
child, only afflicted people could select such music. 
By the way, how do they dance in your country ? " 

" With us ? we jump and stir about, we laugh 
out, shout, perhaps." 

" What comical folks ! and why ? " 

" Because they are happy and want to stir their 
limbs." 



444 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



"Here, four steps forward, as many back, a 
turn cramped by the conflict of neighboring dresses, 
two or three eeometric inchnations. The cotton- 
spinners in the prison at Poissy make precisely the 
same motions." 

*' But these people talk." 

" Go forward and listen ; there is nothing incon- 
siderate about it, I assure you." 
He returns after a minute. 
" What did the man say ? " 

" The gentleman came up briskly, smiled deli- 
cately, and, with a gesture as of a happy discov- 
erer, he remarked that it was warm." 
"And the lady?" 

" The lady's eyes flashed. With an enchanting 
smile of approval, she answered 
that it was indeed." 

"Judge what constraint they 
must have imposed on them- 
selves. The gentleman is thirty 
years old ; for twelve years he 
has known his phrase ; the lady 
is twenty-two, she has known 
hers for seven years. Each has 
made and heard the question 
and answer three or four thou- 
sand times, and yet they appear to be interested, 
surprised. What empire over self! What force 




Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 445 

of nature ! You see clearly that these French who 
are called lieht are stoics on occasion." 

" My eyes smart, my feet are swollen, I have 
been swallowing dust ; it is one o'clock in the 
morning, the air smells bad, I should like to go. 
Will they remain much longer ? " 

" Until five o'clock in the morning." 



EIGHTH. 

Two days after there was a concert. The 
Creole said in coming out that he was very tired, 
and had understood nothing of all that buzzing, and 
begged Paul to explain to him what pleasure peo- 
ple found in such noise. 

" For," said he, *' they have enjoyed it, since 
they paid six francs for admission, and applauded 
vehemently." 

" Music awakes all sorts of agreeable reve- 

J) 
ries. 

" Let us see." ' 

" Such an air suggests scenes of love ; such 
another makes you imagine great landscapes, tragic 
events." 

" And if you don't have these reveries, the music 
bores you ? " 

" Certainly ; unless you are professor of har- 
mony." 



446 



B A Give RES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



" But the audience were not professors of har- 



mony 



?" 




" No indeed." 

" So that they have all had all those reveries 
you talk about, otherwise they would be bored ; 
and, if they were bored, they would neither have 
paid nor applauded." 

" Well argued." 

" Explain then to me the reveries they have had ; 
for example, that serenade mentioned in the pro- 
gramme, the serenade from Don Pasquale." 

" It paints a happy love, full of pleasure and un- 
concern. You see a handsome youth with laugh- 
ing eyes and blooming cheek, in a garden in Italy ; 
under a tranquil moon, by the whispering of the 
breeze, he awaits his mistress, thinks of her smile. 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 447 

and little by little, in measured notes, joy and ten- 
derness spring harmoniously from his heart," 

" What, they imagined all that ! What happy 
country-folk are your people ! What fulness of 
emotion and thouofht ! What discreet counte- 
nances ! I should never have suspected, to see 
them, that they were having so sweet a dream." 

" The second piece was an andante of Beethoven." 

" What about Beethoven ? " 




" A poor, great man, deaf, loving, misunder- 
stood, and a philosopher, whose music is full of 
gigantic or sorrowful dreams." 

"What dreams?" 

•' ' Eternity is a great eyry, whence all the centu- 
ries, like young eaglets, have flown in turn to cross 



448 BA GNERES AND L UCHON. Book IV. 

the heavens and disappear. Ours is in its turn 
come to the brink of the nest ; but they have 
dipped its wings, and it awaits death while gazing 
upon space, into which it cannot take flight.' " 

" What is that you are reciting to me ?" 

" A sentence of de Musset, which translates your 
andante." 

" What ! In three minutes they passed from 
the first idea to this. What men ! What flexi- 
bility of spirit ! I should never have believed 
in such readiness. Without tripping, as a matter 
of course, they entered this reverie on leaving a 
serenade ? What hearts ! What artists ! You 
make me thoroughly ashamed of myself: I shall 
never again dare to say a word to them." 

" The third piece, a duo of Mozart's, expresses 
quite German sentiments, an artless candor, melan- 
choly, contemplative tenderness, the half-defined 
smile, the timidity of love." 

" So that their imagination, which was still 
in a perfect state of distraction, is in a moment so 
transformed as to represent the confidence, the 
innocence, the touching agitation of a young girl ? " 

" Certainly." 

" And there are seven or eight pieces in a con- 
cert ? " 

" At least. Moreover, these pieces being taken 
from three or four countries and two or three cen- 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 



449 



turies, the audience must suddenly assume the 
sentiments, opposite as they are and varied, of all 
these centuries and of all these countries." 

" And they were crowded on benches, under a 
glaring- light." 

" And in the pauses, the men talked railroads, 
the ladies dresses." 

" I am getting confused. I, when I dream, want 
to be alone, at my ease, or at most with a friend. 
If music touches me, it is in a little dark room, 
when some one plays airs of one sort, that suit my 
state of mind. It is not necessary that any one 
should talk to me about positive things. Dreams 
do not come to me at will ; they fly away in spite of 
me. I see clearly that I am on another continent, 
with an entirely different race. One learns in 
travelling." 

A suspicion seized him : " Perhaps they had come 
there for penance ? When they came out, I saw 
them yawning, and dejected in countenance." 

" Don't believe anything of it. It is because they 
restrain themselves. Otherwise, they would burst 
into tears and throw themselves on your necka" 

t NINTH. 

In the evening our Creole, who had been think- 
ing, said to Paul : 
29 



45° BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

" Since you are such musicians in France, your 
well-educated girls must all learn music ? " 

" Three hours of scales every day, for thirteen 
years, from seven to twenty ; total, fourteen thou- 
sand hours," 

" They profit by it ? " 

"One out of eight; of the other seven, three 
become good hand-organs, four poor hand-or- 
gans." 

" I suppose for a compensation they are made to 
read ? " 

" Le Ragois, La Harpe, and other dictionaries, 
all sorts of little treatises of florid piety." 

" What then is your education ? " 

"A pretty case embalmed with incense, per- 
fumed, securely padlocked, where the mind sleeps 
while the fingers turn a bird-organ." 

" Well, that is encouraging for the husband. 
And what does he do ? " 

"He receives the key of the case, opens it; a 
little devil in a white dress jumps at his nose, eager 
to dance and get out." 

" Very well, the husband serves as guide. Has 
he other cares ? " 

" Perhaps so." 

" For instance ? " 

" An apartment, third floor, costs two thousand 
francs, the dress of the wife fifteen hundred, the 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 451 

education of a child, a thousand ; the husband earns 
six thousand." 

"I understand; while dancing, they think of all 
sorts of melancholy things." 

" Of economizing, keeping up appearances, flat- 
tering, calculating." 

" What then is marriage with you ? " 

"■ An act of society between a minister of foreign 
relations and a minister of the interior." 

" And for preparation they have learned — ■' 

"To roll off scales, to shine in trills, to shift their 
wrists. Prestidigitation instructs in housekeeping." 

" Decidedly, you Europeans have a fine logic. 
And the eighth girl, the one who does not become 
a hand-ororan? " 

"The piano forms her too. It answers for 
everything, everywhere. Beneficent machine ! " 

" How is that?" 

" It exalts and refines. Mendelssohn surrounds 
them with ardent, delicate, morbid imaginings. 
Rossini fills their nerves with an expansive and 
voluptuous joy. The sharp, tormented desires, the 
broken, rebel cries of modern passions, rise from 
every strain of Meyerbeer. Mozart awakens in 
them a swarm of affections and dim longings. 
They live in a cloud of emotions and sensations," 

"The other arts would do as much." 

" Not a bit of it. Literature is a living psycho- 



452 BAGNERES AND LUC HON. Book IV. 

logy, painting a living physiology. Music alone 
invents all, copies nothing, is a pure dream, gives 
free rein to dreams." 

"And probably they strike out into it." 

" With all the ardor of their ignorance, their sex, 
imagination, idleness, and their twenty years." 

" Well, of evenings they have the poetry of the 
family and the world for pasture." 

" In the evening, a night-capped gentleman, 
their husband, talks to them of his reports and his 
practice. The children in their cradle are spoiled 
or grumble. The cook brings her account. They 
bow to fifteen men in their salon, and compliment 
fifteen ladies on their dresses. In addition, once 
in awhile, the penitential and funereal ceremony 
you saw three days ago." 

" But then the piano seems chosen expressly." 

"To resign them at the outset to the meanness 
of a commonplace condition, the nothingness of the 
feminine condition, the wretchedness of the human 
condition. It is plain that all will be content, that 
none will become languishing or sharp. Dear and 
beneficent instrument ! Salute it with respect, 
when you enter a room. It is the source of 
domestic concord, of feminine patience and conju- 
gal bliss." 

" Saint Jacques, I swear that niy wife shall not 
know music ! " 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 453 

" You are making bachelor's vows, my dear 
friend. Nowadays every girl who wears gloves 
has made her fineers run over that machine; other- 
wise she would think herself no better than a 
washerwoman." 

" I will marry my washerwoman." 

" The day after your wedding she will have a 
piano brought in." 



Paul has sprained his foot and spent two days in 
his room, occupied in watching a poultry yard. 
He improved the occasion by writing the following 
little treatise for the use of the young Creole, a sort 
of viaticum, with which he will nourish himself for 
the better understanding of the world. I thought 
the treatise melancholy and skeptical. Paul replies, 
that one should be so at first, in order not to be 
afterward, and that it is well to be a little skeptical 
if you wish not to be too skeptical. 




LIFE AND PHILOSOPHICAL OPINIONS 



OF A CAT. 



I. 



I WAS born in a cask, at the back of a hay-loft : 
the hght fell on my closed eyelids, so that the first 
eight days, everything appeared rose-colored to me. 

The eighth, it was still better ; I looked, and saw 
a great fall of light upon the dark shade ; the dust 
and insects danced in it. The hay was warm and 
fragrant ; the spiders hung in sleep from the tiles ; 
the gnats hummed ; everything seemed happy ; that 
emboldened me ; I wanted to go and touch the 
white patch where those little diamonds were whirl- 
ing and which rejoined the roof by a column of 
gold. I rolled over like a ball ; my eyes were 
burned, my sides bruised ; I was choking, and I 
coughed till nightfall. 



Chap. III. 



THE PEOPLE. 



455 



II. 

■ When my paws had become firm, I went out and 
soon made friends with a goose, an estimable crea- 
ture, for she had a warm belly; I cowered under- 
neath, and during this time her philosophic conver- 
sation was forming me. She used to say that the 
poultry yard was a repubUc of allies; that the most 
industrious, man, had been chosen for chief, and 
that the dogs, although turbulent, were our guar- 
dians. I shed tears of emotion under my kmd 

friend's belly. 

One morning the cook appeared lookmg as it 
butter would not melt in her mouth, and showing 
a handful of barley. The goose stretched forth her 
neck, which the cook grasped, drawing a big knife. 
My uncle, an active philosopher, ran up and began 
to exhort the goose, which was uttering indecorous 
cries: " Dear sister," said he, "the farmer, when he 
shall have eaten your flesh, will have a clearer imel- 
hgence, and will watch better over your welfare ; 
and the dogs, nourished with your bones, will be 
the more capable of defending you." Thereupon 
the goose became silent, for her head was cut 
off, and a sort of red pipe stuck out beyond the 
bleeding neck. My uncle ran for the head and car- 
ried it nimbly away ; as for me, a little frightened, I 



456 



BA GNERES AND L UCHON. 



Book IV. 



drew near to the pool of blood, and, without think- 
ing, I dipped my tongue into it ; the blood was very 
good, and I went to the kitchen to see if I could 
not have some more of it. 



III. 



My uncle, a very old and experienced animal, 




taught me universal history. 

At the beofinnine of thinofs, when he was born, 
the master beinof dead, the children at the funeral 
and the servants at a dance, all the animals found 
themselves free. It was a frightful hubbub ; a tur- 
key, whose feathers were too fine, was stripped by 
his comrades. In the evening, a ferret, which had 
slipped in, sucked the jugular vein of three-quar- 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 457 



ters of the combatants, who, naturally, made no 
further outcry. The spectacle in the farmyard was 
fine ; here and there was a dog swallowing a duck ; 
the horses in pure sportiveness were breaking the 
backs of the dogs ; my uncle himself crunched a 
half-dozen little chickens. That was the golden 
age, said he. 

In the evening, when the people came home, 
the whipping began. Uncle received a lash which 
took off a strip of his fur. The dogs, well flogged 
and tied up, howled with repentance and licked the 
hands of their new master. The horses resumed 
their burden with administrative zeal. The fowls, 
protected, clucked their benedictions ; only, six 
months after, when the dealer passed, they killed 
fifty at once. The geese, among whose number 
was my late kind friend, flapped their wings, saying 
that everything was in good order, and praising 
the farmer, the public benefactor. 



IV. 

My uncle, although surly, acknowledges that 
things are better than they used to be. He says 
that at first our race was savage, and that there 
are still in the woods cats who are like our first 
ancestors, which, at long intervals, catch a mole or 
dormouse, but oftener the contents of a shot-gun. 



458 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



Others, lean, short-haired, run over the roofs and 
think that mice are very rare. As for us, brought 
up on the summit of earthly felicity, we whisk a 
flatterinor tail in the kitchen, we utter tender little 
mewings, we lick the empty plates, and at the 
utmost we put up with a dozen cuffs in the course 
of the day. 




V. 



Music is a heavenly art, and it is certain that 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 459 

our race has the privilege of it ; it springs from the 
depths of our entrails ; men know this so well that 
they borrow them from us when they want to imi- 
tate us with their violins. 

Two things inspire in us these heavenly songs: 
the view of the stars and love. Men, clumsy copy- 
ists, cram themselves ridiculously into a low hall, 
and skip about thinking to equal us. It is on the 
summit of the roofs, in the splendor of the night, 
when all the skin shivers, that the divine melody can 
find vent. Out of jealousy they curse us and 
fling stones at us. Let them burst with rage. Never 
will their expressionless voice attain to those serious 
rumblings, those piercing notes, mad arabesques, 
inspired and unexpected fancies, which soften the 
soul of the most stubborn she, and give her 
over to us, all trembling, while up above the 
voluptuous stars twinkle and the moon grows pale 
with love. 

How happy is youth, and how hard it is to lose 
its holy illusions ! And I too, I have loved and have 
haunted the roofs, modulating the while the roll of 
my bass. One of my cousins was touched thereby, 
and two months after brought into the world six 
pink and white kittens. I ran to them and wanted 
to eat them ; I certainly had a right, since I was 
their father. Who would believe it ! My cousin, 
my spouse, to whom I was willing to give her share 



46o BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV 



of the banquet, flew at my eyes. This brutaUty 
roused my indignation, and I strangled her on the 
spot ; after which I swaUowed the entire htter. 

But the hapless little rogues were good for no- 
thing, not even to nourish their father : their flabby 
flesh weighed on my stomach for three days. Dis- 
gusted with the strong passions, I gave up music, 
and returned to the kitchen. 



VI. 



I HAVE thought much on the ideal happiness, and 
I think I have made thereupon some notable dis- 
coveries. 

It evidently consists, in warm weather, in sleeping 
near the barnyard pool. A delicious odor arises 
from the fermenting dung ; lustrous straws shine in 
the sunlight. The turkeys ogle lovingly, and let 
their crest of red flesh fall on their beak. The fowls 
scratch up the straw, and bury their broad bellies; 
to take in the rising heat. The pool gleams, 
swarminof with movinof insects which make the 
bubbles rise to its surface. The harsh whiteness 
of the walls renders yet deeper the bluish recesses 
where the gnats hum. With eyes half closcxl \ou 
dream ; and, as you have almost ceased to think, you 
no longer wish for anything. 



Chap. III. 



THE PEOPLE. 



461 



In winter, happiness is in sitting at the fireside in 
the kitchen. The httle tongues of flame hck the 
loo- and shoot amidst the sparks ; the twigs snap 
and writhe, while the twisted smoke rises in the 
dark chimney to the very sky. Meanwhile the 
spit turns with a harmonious and pleasing ticktack. 
The fowl that is impaled reddens, turns brown, 
becomes splendid ; the fat which moistens it softens 




its hues ; a delightful odor irritates the olfactories ; 
your tongue involuntarily caresses your lips ; you 
take in the divine emanations of the fat ; with eyes 
lifted to heaven in a serious transport, you wait till 
the cook takes off the creature and offers you the 
part that belongs to you. 

He who eats is happy, he who digests is happier, 
he who sleeps while digesting is happier still. All 
the rest is only vanity and vexation of spirit. The 



462 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

fortunate mortal is he who, warmly rolled into a ball 
with his belly full, feels his stomach in operation 
and his skin expand. A delightful tickling pene- 
trates and softly stirs the fibres. The outer and 
the inner creature enjoy with their every nerve. 
Surely if the universe is a great and blessed God, 
as our sages say, the earth must be an immense 
belly busy through all eternity digesting the crea- 
tures, and warming its round skin in the sun. 



VII. 



My mind has been greatly enlarged by reflection. 
By a sure method, sound conjectures and sustained 
attention, I have penetrated some of the secrets of 
nature. 

The dog is an animal so deformed, of such an 
unruly character, that from the earliest times it has 
been considered to be a monster, born and moulded 
in despite of all laws. Indeed, when rest is the 
natural state, how explain an animal that is forever 
in motion and busy, and that without aim nor need, 
even when he is gorged and not afraid? When 
beauty universally consists in suppleness, grace 
and prudence, how allow an animal to be forever 
brutal, howling, mad, jumping at the nose of people, 
running after kicks and rebuffs ? When the favorite 



Chap. III. 



THE PEOPLE. 



463 



and masterpiece of creation is the cat, how under- 
stand an animal that hates it, runs at it, without 
havino- received a sinde scratch from it, and breaks 
its ribs without any desire to eat its flesh ? 

These contradictions prove that dogs are con- 
demned being-s ; without a doubt the souls of the 
guilty and punished pass into their bodies. They 
suffer there ; that is why they worry one another, 
and fret unceasingly. They have lost their reason, 
so they spoil everything, incite to battle, and are 




chained three-quarters of the day. They hate the 
beautiful and the good, consequently they try to 
throttle us. 

VIII. 

Little by little the mind frees itself from the 



_. 



464 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book iV 



prejudices in which it was reared ; hght dawns ; it 
thinks for itself; thus it is that I have attained to 
the true explanation of things. 

Our first ancestors (and the gutter cats have re- 
tained this belief) said that heaven is a very lofty 




granary, well covered, where the sun never hurts 
the eyes. In this granary, my great-aunt used to 
say, there are troops of rats so fat that they can 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. 465 



hardly walk, and the more we eat of them, the 
more there are to eat. 

But it is evident that this is the opinion of poor 
devils, who, since they have never eaten anything 
but rat, cannot imagine a better diet. Besides, 
granaries are wood-color or gray, and the sky is 
blue, which finishes their confusion. 

In truth, they rest their opinion upon a sufficiently 
shrewd remark : " It is evident," they say, " that the 
sky is a granary of straw or flour, for there come 
out of it very often clouds light, as when the wheat 
is winnowed, or white, as when bread is sprinkled 
in the kneading-trough." 

But I reply to them that the clouds are not 
formed by the chaff of grain or the dust of flour ; 
for when they fall, it is water that we receive. 

Others, more refined, have maintained that the 
Dutch oven was God, saying that it is the fount of 
every blessing, turns unceasingly, goes to the fire 
without being burned, and that the sight of it is 
enough to throw one into ecstasy. 

In my opinion they have erred here only because 
they saw it through the window, from a distance, in 
a poetic, colored, sparkling smoke, beautiful as the 
sun at evening. But I, who have sat near it during 
whole hours, I know that it has to be sponged, 
mended, wiped; and in acquiring knowledge, I have 
lost the innocent illusions of heart and stomach. 
30 



466 



BAGNERES AND LUCMON. 



Book IV. 



The mind must be opened to conceptions more 
vast, and reason by more certain methods. Nature 
is everywhere uniform with herself, and in small 
things offers the imaQfe of the s^reat. From what 
do all animals spring ? from an Q.gg ; the earth then 




is a very great ^gg ; I even add that it is a broken 



You will convince yourself of this if you examine 
the form and the limits of this valley, which is the 
visible world. It is concave like an &gg, and the 
sharp edges by which it rejoins the sky are jagged, 
are keen-edged and white like those of a broken 
shell. 

The white and the yolk, pressed into lumps, have 



Chap. III. THE PEOPLE. ^G] 



formed these blocks of stone, these houses and the 
whole solid earth. Some parts have remained soft 
and form the surface that men plough ; the rest 
runs in water and makes the pools, the rivers ; each 
spring-time there runs a little that is new. 

As to the sun, nobody can doubt its use ; it is a 
great red firebrand that is moved back and forth 
above the egg to cook it gently ; the Qgg has been 
broken on purpose, in order that it may be the 
better impregnated with the heat ; the cook always 
does so. The world is a great beaten egg. 

Now that I have reached this stage of wisdom, I 
have nothing more to ask of nature, nor of men, 
nor of any one ; except, perhaps, some little tidbits 
from the roaster. In future I have only to cradle 
myself to rest in my wisdom ; for my perfection is 
subhme, and no thinking cat has penetrated into 
the secret of the world so far as I. 





CHAPTER IV. 



THE ROAD TO BAGNERESDE-LUCHON. 



I. 



Every man who has the use of his eyes and 
ears ought, in travelHng, to cHmb up to the im- 
perial. The highest places are the most beauti- 
ful ; ask those who occupy them. You break 
your neck if you fall from them ; consult the same 
people about this. But you enjoy yourself while 
you are there. 

In the first place, you see the landscape, which 
produces descriptions that you offer to the pub- 
lic. In the coupe, your only spectacle is the har- 
ness of the horses ; in the interior, you see through 
a tiny window the trees trooping by like soldiers 
carrying arms ; in the rotunda, you are in a cloud 



Chap. IV. TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON. 469 

of dust that dims the landscape and strangles the 
traveller. 

In the second place, at the top you will have 
comedy. In the lower places, the people preserve 
decorum and are silent. The peasants here perch- 
ed aloft, who are your companions, the postilion 
and the conductor, make open-hearted confidences : 
they talk of their wives, their children, their prop- 
erty, trade, neighbors, and above all of themselves ; 
so that at the end of an hour you imagine their 
housekeeping and their life as clearly as if you were 
at home with them. It is a novel of manners that 
you skim through on the road. Not one of them 
gives ideas so vivid and so truthful. You get to 
know the people only by living with them, and the 
people from three-quarters of the nation. These 
bits of conversation teach you the number of their 
ideas and the hue of their passions ; now, on these 
ideas and passions depend all the great events. 
Besides their rude manners, their loud bursts of 
laughter, their frank respect for bodily strength, 
their acknowledged inclination for the pleasure of 
eating and drinking, offer a contrast to the humbug 
of our politeness and our affectation of refinement. 
The conductor told the postilion how the evening 
before they had eaten the half of a sheep among 
three of them. It was good, fat mutton ; they 
served up no better at the Hotel of the Great Sun : 



470 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



there were sirloins, cutlets, a neat leg of mutton. 
They had emptied six botdes. The other made 




him tell it over, and seemed to eat in imagination, 
by the reaction, by recoil, as it were. After the 
banquet, he had made the horses gallop ; he had 
passed by Ribettes. Ribettes had swallowed dust 
for a whole hour ; Ribettes wanted to get ahead 
again, but wasn't able. Ribettes grew very angry. 
They had dared Ribettes. The story of Ribettes 
and the mutton was told eiMit times in an hour, and 
seemed the last time as deliofhtful and as new as 
the first. They laughed like the blest. 

In the third place, that is the only spot where 
you can breathe. The other divisions are sweat- 
ing-rooms whose partitions and black cushions hold 
and concentrate the heat. Now, there is no man, 
no matter how he may love colors and lines, who 
can enjoy a landscape shut up in a box without air. 
When the creature is cramped, the soul is cramped. 



Chap. IV. TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON. 471 



Admiration presupposes comfort, and when you are 
broiled by the sun you curse the sun. 

n. 

The coach starts very early in the morning and 
cHmbs a long ascent under the gray bright- 
ness of the dawn. The peasants come in troops ; 
the women have five or six bottles of milk on the 
head, in a basket. Oxen, with lowered brows, 
drag carts as primitive and Gallic as at Pau. The 
children, in brown berets, run in the dust, along- 
side their mothers. The village is coming to 
nourish the city. 

Escaladieu shows at the wayside the remains of 
an ancient abbey. The chapel is still standing and 
preserves fragments of gothic sculpture. A bridge 
is at the side, shaded by tall trees. The pretty 
river Arros runs, with moire reflexes and guipures 
of silver, over a bed of dark pebbles. No one 
could choose a situation better than the monks : 
they were the artists of the time. 

Mauvoisin, an ancient stronghold of robber- 
knights, lifts its ruined tower above the valley. 
Froissart relates how they besieged these honest 
folk ; of a truth, in those times, they were as good 
as their neighbors, and the Duke of Anjou, their 
enemy, had done more harm than they. 



472 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. BookIV. 

" A Gascon squire, an able man-at-arms, named 
Raymonet de I'Epee, was at that time Gover- 
nor of Malvoisin. There were daily skirmishes 
at the barriers, where many gallant feats were 
done by those who wished to advance them- 
selves 

'* The castle of Malvoisin held out about six 
weeks, there were daily skirmishes between the 
two armies at the barriers, and the place would 
have made a longer resistance, for the castle was 
so strong it could have held a long siege ; but the 
well that supplied the castle with water being with- 
out the walls, they cut off the communication : 
the weather was very hot, and the cisterns within 
quite dry, for it had not rained one drop for six 
weeks, and the besiegers were at their ease, on the 
banks of this clear and fine river, which they made 
use of for themselves and horses. 

" The earrison of Malvoisin were alarmed at their 
situation, for they could not hold out longer. They 
had a sufficiency of wine, but not one drop of sweet 
water. They determined to open a treaty ; and 
Raymonet de I'Epee requested a passport to wait 
on the duke, which, having easily obtained, he 
said : ' My lord, if you will act courteously to me 
and my companions, I will surrender the castle ot 
Malvoisin.' * What courtesy is it you ask ? ' re- 
plied the Duke of Anjou : ' get about your business 











"^^ r- "'^^ 

' V'' 2 



r 



*■' ■-- 



<t4 i 



•\ * 






Chap. IV. TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON. 475 

each of you to his own country, without enter- 
ing any fort that holds out against us ; for if you 
do so, and I get hold of you, I will deliver you up 
to Jocelin, who will shave you without a razor.' 
' My lord,' answered Raymonet, ' if we thus de- 
part we must carry away what belongs to us, and 
what we have gained by arms and with great risk.' 
The duke paused awhile, and then said, ' I consent 
that you take with you whatever you can carry be- 
fore you in trunks and on sumpter horses, but not 
otherwise ; and if you have any prisoners, they must 
be given up to us.' * I agree,' said Raymonet. 
Such was the treaty, as you hear me relate it ; and 
all who were in the castle departed, after surren- 
dering it to the Duke of Anjou, and carrying 
all they could with them. They returned to 
their own country, or elsewhere, in search of ad- 
ventures." 

These good folk who wished to keep the fruits 
of their labor, had spent their time "in fleecing 
the merchants " of Catalonia, as well as of France, 
'' and in making war on and harrying them of Ba- 
gneres and Bigorre." Bagneres was then " a good, 
big, closed city." People fortified everywhere, 
because there was fighting everywhere. They 
went out only with a safe-conduct and an escort : 
instead of gendarmes they met plunderers ; instead 
of umbrellas they carried off lances. A secure 



476 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



house was a fine house ; when a man had immured 
himself in a thick tower built like a well, he 
breathed fireely, he felt at his ease. Those were 
the good old times, as every one knows. 



III. 



Encausse is very near here, at the turn of the 
road. Chapelle and Bachaumont came there to re- 




store their stomachs, which needed and deserved it 
well, for they used them more than some do. They 
wrote their travels, and their style flows as easily 
as their life. They go by short stages, drink, chat, 
feast among the friends they have everywhere, 
court the ladies, make game very pleasantly of the 
provincial folk. They drink the health of the 



Chap. IV. TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON. 477 

absent, enjoy the muscatel as much as possible, 
and trifle in prose and verse. They are the epicu- 
reans of their time, easy poets who are troubled 
about nothing, not even about glory ; graze all that 
they touch, and write only for their own amusement. 

" Encausse," say they, " is far from all commerce, 
and a man can have no other diversion in it than 
that of watching the return of his health. A small 
stream that, a score of paces away from the village, 
winds amonof willows and the greenest fields imagf- 
inable, was our only consolation. We used to go 
every morning to take our water in this pretty spot, 
and after dinner to walk there. One day when we 
were on the brink, seated on the grass, there came 
suddenly from the midst of the reeds that were 
nearest a man who had apparently been listening to 
us ; it was 

" An old man, all white, pale and lean, whose 
beard and locks hung below his girdle, such (an 
one) as Melchisedec is painted ; or rather the 
figure is that of a certain old Greek bishop, who, 
with many a salaam, tells everybody's fortune ; for 
he wore a top-piece like a cauldron-lid, but of 
exceeding size, which answered him for a hat. 
And this hat, whose broad brim went drooping 
upon his shoulders, was made of branches of wil- 
low, and covered nearly all his body. His coat of 
greenish hue was woven of rushes, the whole 



478 BAGNERES A AW LUCHON. Book IV. 

covered with great bits of a thick and bluish crys- 
tal.^ 

" At sight of this apparition, fear caused us to 
make the sign of the cross twice over, and go three 
paces backward. But curiosity prevailed over fear, 
and we resolved, although with some little palpita- 
tion of heart, to await the extraordinary old man, 
whose approach w^as thoroughly courteous, and 
who spoke to us very civilly as follows : 

" Gentlemen, I am not surprised that with my 
unexpected appearance you should be a little star- 
tled in mind, but when you shall have learned in 



■ Un vieillard tout blanc, pale et sec, 
Dont la barbe et la cheveluve 
Pendaient plus bas que la ceinture, 
Ainsi qu'on peint Melchisedech ; 
Ou plutot telle est la figure 
D'un certain vieux eveque gi"ec 
Qui, faisant la salamalec, 
Dit a tous la bonne aventure ; 
Car il portait un chapiteau 
Conime un couvercle de lessive, 
Mais d'une grandeur excessive, 
Qui lui tenait lieu de chapeau. 
Et CO chapeau, dont les grands bords 
AUaient tombants sur ses epaules, 
Etait fait de branches de saules, 
Et couvrait presque tout son corps. 
Son liabit de couleur verdatre 
£tait d'un tissu de roseaux, 
Le tout convert de gros morceaux 
D'un cristal epais et bleuatre. 



Chap. IV. TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON. 479 

what rank the fates have set my birth to you 
unknown, and the motive of my coming, you will 
calm your minds. I am the god of this stream, 
who, with an ever inexhaustible urn, tilted at the 
foot of that hill, take the task in this meadow of 
pouring unceasingly the water, which makes it so 
green and flowery. For eight days now, morning 
and evening, you come regularly to see me with- 
out thinking to pay me a visit. It is not that I 
do not deserve that you should pay me this 
respect ; for, in short, I have this advantage, that 
a channel so pure and clear is the place of my 
appanage. In Gascony such a portion is very neat 
for a cadet." * 

• * " Messieurs, je ne suis pas surpris 

Que de ma rencontre imprevue 
Vous ayez un peu 1' ame emue ; 
Mais lorsque vous aurez appris 
En quel rang les destins ont mis 
Ma naissance a vous incomiue, 
Et le sujet de ma venue, 
Vous rassurerez vos esprits. 
Je suis le dieu de ce ruisseau, 
Qui d'une urne jamais tarie, 
Penchee au pied de ce coteau, 
Prends le soin dans cette prairie 
De verser incessamment I'eau 
Qui la rend si verte et fleurie. 
Depuis huit jours, matin et soir, 
Vous me venez reglement voir, 
Sans croire me rendre visite. 
Ce n'est pas que je ne merite 



48o BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

The two travellers were talking of the tides of 
the Garonne, and of the reasons for them given by 
Gassendi and Descartes. This very obliging god 
relates to them how Neptune thereby punishes an 
ancient rebellion of the rivers. " Then the honest 
river-god takes himself off, and when he has gone 
a score of paces the good soul is melted entirely 
into water." 

Nowadays this mythology seems unmeaning, 
and the thought flat. Look at the environs, the 
surroundings save it. Carelessness, intoxication, 
are on one side. It is born between two glasses 
of good wine thoroughly relished, in the midst of 
an unpremeditated letter. Are people so very nice 
at table? It is a refrain they are humming ; flat or 
not, is of no consequence. The main thing is good 
humor and the inclination to laugh. I picture to 
myself the honest fellows, well-dressed, portly, their 
eyes still shining from the long dinner of yesterday, 
with rubies on their cheeks, perfectly ready to sit 
down to dine at the first inn and to bedevil the 
maid. La Fontaine did so, especially when he 
travelled. They made stops, forgot themselves, 

Que Ton me reiide ce devoir ; 
Car enfin j'ai eel avantage, 
Qu'un canal si clair et si net 
Est le lieu de mon ajianage. 
Dans la tiascognc, un tel partage 
Est bien joli pour un cadet." 



Chap. IV. TO BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON. 483 



the broad jokes flew. They didn't cross France as 
nowadays, after the fashion of a cannon-ball or 
an attorney ; they allowed five days for going to 
Poitiers, and in the evening, on going to bed, they 
fed the body. It was the last age of the good cor- 
poreal life, that heavy bourgeoisie which had its 
flower and its portrait in Flemish art. It was 
already disappearing ; aristocratic propriety and 
lordly salutes were taking possession of literature ; 
Boileau gave us serious verse, thoroughly useful 
and solid, like pairs of tongs. Nowadays when 
the middle-class man is a philosopher, ambitious, a 
man of business, it is far worse. Let us not speak 
ill of those who are happy ; happiness is a sort of 
poetry ; it is in vain that we boast ourselves, that 
poetry we have not. 



IV. 



The road is bordered with vines, each of which 
carries up its tree, elm or ash, the crown of a fresh 
verdure, and lets its leaves and tendrils fall again 
in plumes. The valley is a garden long and nar- 
row, between two chains of mountains. On the 
lower slopes are beautiful meadows where the liv- 
ing waters run in orderly fashion in trenches, nim- 
ble, prattling irrigators ; the villages are seated 



484 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



along the little river ; vine-stocks climb along the 
dusty wall. The mallows, straight as tapers, lift 
above the hedges their round flowers, brilliant as 
roses of rubies. Orchards of apples pass continu- 
ally on both sides of the coach ; cascades fall in 
every hollow of the chain, surrounded with houses 
that seek a shelter. The heat and the dust are so 
terrible that they are obliged every time we pass 
a spring to sponge the nostrils of the horses. But 
at the end of the valley a mass of dark, rugged 
mountains lifts itself, with tops that are white with 
snow, feeding the river and closing the horizon. 
Finally, we pass beneath an alley of fine plane- 
trees, between two rows of villas, gardens, hotels, 
and shops. It is Luchon, a little city as Parisian 
as Bigorre. 





CHAPTER V. 



LUC HON. 



I. 



The street is a broad alley, planted with large 
trees, and lined with rather handsome hotels. It 
was opened by the intendant d'Etigny, who, for 
this misdeed, was near being stoned. It was neces- 
sary to call in a company of dragoons to force the 
Luchonnais to endure the prosperity of their coun- 
try. 

At the end of the alley a pretty chalet, like those 
in the Jardin des Plantes, shelters the du Pre 
spring. Its walls are a fantastic trellis of gnarled 
branches, adorned with their bark; its roof is 
thatched; its ceiling is a tapestry of moss. A 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



young- girl sitting at the taps distributes to the 
bathers glasses of sulphurous water. The elegant 
toilettes come about four o'clock. Meanwhile you 
sit in the shade on benches of woven wood, and 
watch the children playing on the turf, the rows of 
trees descending toward the river, and the broad 
green plain, sprinkled with villages. 

Below the spring are the bathing-houses, nearly 
finished, and which will be the finest in the Pyre- 
nees. At present the neighboring field is still 
strewn with materials ; the lime smokes all day, and 
makes the air to flame and quiver. 

The court of the baths contains a large votive 
altar, bearing on one of its faces an amphora and 
this inscription : 

Nymphis. 

Aug. 
Sacrum. 

They have preserved in addition these other 
two : 

Nymphis Lixoni Deo 

T. Claudius Fabia Festa 

Rufus V. S. L. M. 

V. S. L. M. 

This god Lixo, they say, was in the time of the 
Celts the tutelary deity of the country. Hence the 



Chap. V. 



L UCBON. 



name of Luchon. He is maimed and not destroyed. 
The gods are tenacious of life. 



11. 



In the evening one hears far too many pianos. 




There are several balls, and orchestras in certain 
cafes. These orchestras are strolling families, hired 
at so much a week, to make the house uninhabita- 
ble. One of these, composed of a flute, male, and 
four violins, female, used fearlessly to play the same 
overture every evening. The privileged beings 



488 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



who had paid were in the hall among the music 
stands. A throng of peasants always crowded at 
the door, with open mouths ; they formed in a cir- 
cle and mounted on the benches to see. 

The tradespeople of every sort turn their shops 
into a lottery : lottery of plate, of books, of little 
objects of ornament, etc. The tradesman and his 
wife distribute cards, price one sou, to the servant- 
maids, soldiers, and children, who compose the 
crowd. Somebody draws ; the gallery and those 
interested stretch their necks eagerh' forward. 
The man reads the number ; a cry is heard, the 
unguarded sign of an overflowing joy. " It's I 
that have won, I, monsieur the merchant." And 
you see a little serving-maid, blushing all over, lift 
herself on tiptoe and stretch out her hands. The 
merchant dexterously seizes a pot, parades it above 
his head, and makes everybody about remark it. 
"A fine mustard-pot; a mustard-pot worth three 
francs, threaded with gold. Who wants num- 
bers ? " The assembly lasts four hours. It begins 
anew every day ; the customers are not wanting for 
a single moment. 

These people have a genius for display. One 
day we heard the roll of drums, followed by four 
men marching solemnly, swathed in shawls and 
pieces of cloth. The children and the dogs follow 
the procession w ith hubbub ; it is the opening of a 



Chap. V. LUCHON. 489 

new shop. The next day I copied the following 
handbill printed on yellow paper : 

" Orpheonic festival in the grotto of Gargas. 

" The Orpheonic Society from the city of Mon- 
trejean will execute 

" The polka ; 

" Several military marches ; 

" Several waltzes ; 

" Divers other pieces from the works of the 
great masters. 

" Among other amateurs who will allow them- 
selves to be heard, one will sing some stanzas on 
eternity. 

" Finally, an exquisite voice, which wishes to re- 
main anonymous in order to avoid those deserved 
praises that people are fond of lavishing on its sex, 
will sing also a number of pieces analogous to the 
circumstances, 

" It will be delicious and even seraphic to lend 
an ear to the echo of the sonorous concretions of 
the stalactites, which will unite with the vibrating 
echo of the vault to repeat the harmonious notes ; 
and when the divine voice shall be heard, the in- 
toxicating charm of the spell will surpass every 
impression which can have been left in the soul by 
the most delightful of musical reunions. 

" Price of admission : i franc." 

These people are descendants of Clemence 



490 BAGNERES AND LUC HON. Book IV. 

Isaure. Their advertisements are odes. By way 
of compensation many odes are advertisements. 

In fact, you are here not far from Toulouse ; like 
the character, the type is new. The young girls 
have fine, regular, clear-cut faces, of a lively and 
gay expression. They are small, with a light step, 
brilliant eyes, the nimbleness of a bird. In the 
evening, about a lottery-shop, these pretty faces 
stand out animated and full of passion beneath the 
flickering light, fringed with a black shadow. The 
eyes sparkle, the red lips tremble, the neck tosses 
with the little abrupt movements of the swallow ; 
no picture can be more full of life. 

If you leave the lighted and tumultuous alley, at 
the distance of an hundred paces, you find silence, 
solitude and obscurity. At night, the valley is of 
great beauty ; it is framed and drawn out between 
two chains of parallel mountains, huge pillars 
which stretch in two files and support the dark 
vault of heaven. 

Their arches mark it out like a cathedral ceiling, 
and the immense nave vanishes several leagues 
away, radiant with stars ; these stars fling out 
flames. At this moment, they are the only living 
things ; the valley is black, the air motionless ; you 
can only distinguish the tapering tops of the pop- 
lars, erect in the tranquil night, wrapt in their 
mantle of leaves. The topmost branches stir, and 



Chap. V. 



Z UCHON. 



491 



their rustle is like the murmur of a prayer echoed 
by the distant hum of the torrent. 



III. 



By daylig-ht, the country is rich and smiling ; the 



-»--^ 




valley is not a gorge, but a beautiful level meadow- 
marked with trees and fields of maize, among 
w^hich the river runs, but does not leap. Luchon is 
surrounded with alleys of plane-trees, poplars and 
lindens. You leave these alleys for a pathway 
which follows the waves of the Pique and winds 
amidst the high grass. The ashes and oaks form a 
screen along the two banks ; big brooks come from 
the mountains ; you cross them on trunks laid bridge- 
wise or on broad slabs of slate. All these waters 



492 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

flow in the shade, between knotted roots which 
they bathe, and which form trelHses on both sides. 
The bank is covered with hanging- herbage ; you 
see nothintr but the fresh verckire and the dark 
waters. It is here that at noon the pedestrians 
take refuge ; along the sides of the valley wind 
dusty roads where stream the carriages and the 
horsemen. Higher up, the mountains, gray or 
browned with moss, display their soft lines and 
noble forms as far as the eye can reach. They are 
not wild as at Saint Sauveur, nor bare as at Eaux- 
Bonnes ; each of these chains advances nobly to- 
ward the city and behind it leaves its vast ridge to 
undulate to the very verge of the horizon. 



IV. 



Above Luchon is a mountain called Super-Bag- 
neres. At the outset I run across the Fountain of 
Love; it is a hut of planks where beer is sold. 

A winding staircase, crossed by springs, then 
steep pathways in a black forest of firs lead you in 
two hours to the pastures on the summit. The 
mountain is about five thousand feet high. These 
pastures are great undulating hills, ranged in rows, 
carpeted with short turf and thickset, fragrant 
thyme ; here and there in crowds are broad tufts 



Chap. V. 



L UCHON. 



493 



of a sort of wild iris, the flower of which fades in 
the month of August. You reach there fatigued, 
and on the grass of the highest point you may 




sleep in the sunlight with the utmost pleasure in 
life. Clouds of winded ants eddied in the warm 
rays. In a hollow beneath us we heard the bleat- 
ing of sheep and of goats. A quarter of a league 



494 -BA GNERES AND L UCHON. Book IV. 



off, on the back of the mountain, a pool of water 
was elitterincr hke burnished steel. Here, as on 
Mount Bergonz and the Pic du Midi, you look on 
an amphitheatre of mountains. These have not 
the heroic severity of the primal granite, black 
rocks clothed with luminous air and white snow. 
On one side alone, toward the Crabioules moun- 
tains, the naked and jagged rocks were silvered 
with a girdle of glaciers. Everywhere else, the 
slopes were without escarpment, the forms softened, 
the angles dulled and rounded. But, although less 
wild, the amphitheatre of the mountains was impos- 
ing. The idea of the simple and imperishable 
entered with an entire dominion into the subdued 
mind. Peaceful sensations cradled the soul in their 
mighty undulations. It harmonized itself with these 
huge and immovable creatures. It was like a con- 
cert of three or four notes indefinitely prolonged 
and sung by deep voices. 

The day was declining, clouds dimmed the chilled 
sky. The woods, the fields, the mossy moors, the 
rocks of the slopes, took various hues in the waning 
light. P)Ut this opposition of hues, obliterated by 
distance and the crreatness of the masses, melted 
into a green and grayish shade, of a melancholy 
and tender effect, like that of a vast wilderness half 
stocked with verdure. The shadows of the clouds 
travelled slowly, darkening the tawny summits. All 



Chap. V. 



LUC HON. 



495 



was in harmony, the monotonous sound of the wind, 
the calm march of the clouds, the waning of the 




day, the tempered colors, the softened lines. Here 
it is the second age of nature. The earth conceals 
the rocks, the mosses clothe the earth, the rounded 
undulations of the upheaved soil resemble the tired 



496 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

waves an hour after the tempest. Luchon is not 
far from the plains ; its mountains are the last bil- 
lows of the subterranean storm which lifted the 
Pyrenees ; distance has diminished their violence, 
tempered their grandeur, and softened their steeps. 
Toward evening- we descended into the hollow 
where the goats were passing. A spring was run- 
ning there, caught in the hollowed trunks of trees 
which answered for watering-troughs to the herds. 
It is a delicious pleasure after a day's tramp to 
bathe hands and lips in the cold fountain. Its 
sound on this solitary plateau was charming. The 
water trickled through the wood, among the stones, 
and everywhere that it glided over the blackened 
earth the sun covered it with splendor. Lines of 
reeds marked its track to the brink of the pool. 
Herdsman and animals had gone down ; it was the 
sole inhabitant of this abandoned field. Was it not 
singular to meet with a marsh at the heit^ht of \^vQ. 
thousand feet ? 



V. 



Toward the south the river becomes a torrent. 
Half a league from Luchon it is swallowed up in a 
deep defile of red rocks, many of which have fallen ; 
the bed is choked with blocks ; the two walls of 
rock close together in the north, and the danuued- 



Chap. V. 



LUC HON. 



497 



•H « 



Up water roars to get out of its prison; but the 
trees grow in the "~~ 

crevices, and along 
the wall the white 
flowers of the bram- 
ble hang in locks. 

Very near here, on 
a round eminence of 
bare rock, rises the 
ruin of a Moorish 
tower, named Cas- 
tel-Vieil. Its side 
is bordered wnth a 
friehtful mountain, 
black and brown, 
perfectly bald and re- 
sembling a decayed 
amphitheatre ; the 
layers hang one over 
another, notched, dis- 
located, bleeding ; 
the sharp edges and 
fractures are yel- 
lowed with wretched 
moss, vegetable ul- 
cers that defile with 
their leprous patches 
the nudity of the stone. The pieces of this mon- 
32 




498 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

strous skeleton hold together only by their mass ; 
it is crannied with deep fissures, bristling with 
falling blocks, broken to the very base ; it is nothing 
but a ruin dreary and colossal, sitting at the en- 
trance of a valley, like a battered giant. 

There was an old beggar-woman there, with 
naked feet and arms, Avho was worthy of the moun- 
tain. For a dress she had a bundle of rags of every 
color sewn together, and remained the whole day 
lonof crouched in the dust. One mio-ht have counted 
the muscles and tendons of her limbs ; the sun had 
dried her flesh and burned her skin ; she resembled 
the rock aeainst which she was sittino- ; she was tall, 
with large, regular features, a brow seamed with 
wrinkles like the bark of an oak, beneath her 
grizzled lids a savage black eye, a mat of white 
hair hanging in the dust. If a sculptor had 
wished to make a statue of Dryness, the model 
was there. 

The valley narrows and ascends ; the Gave rolls 
between two slopes of great forests, and falls in a 
constant succession of cascades. The eyes are 
satiated with freshness and verdure ; the trees 
mount to the very sky, thickset, splendid ; the 
maofnificent li^dit falls like a rain on the immense 
slope ; the myriads of plants suck it in, and the 
mighty sap that gorges them overflows in luxury 
and vieor. On all hands the heat and the water 



Chap. V. LUCHON. ■ 501 

invigorate and propagate them ; they accumulate ; 
enormous beeches hang above the torrent ; ferns 
people the brink ; moss hangs in green garlands on 
the arcades of roots ; wild flowers grow by families 
in the crevices of the beeches ; the long branches 
go with a leap to the further brink ; the water 
glides, boils, leaps from one bank to the other with 
a tireless violence, and pierces its way by a succes- 
sion of tempests. 

Further on some noble beeches climb the slope, 
forming an inclined plane of foliage. The sun gives 
lustre to their rustling tops. The cool shadow 
spreads its dampness between their columns, over 
the ribbons of sparse grass, and on str~awberries 
red as coral. From time to time the light falls 
through an opening, and gushes in cataracts over 
their flanks which it illuminates ; isles of brightness 
then cleave the dim depths ; the topmost leaves 
move softly their diaphanous shade ; the shadow 
almost disappears, so strong and universal is the 
splendor. Meanwhile a small hidden spring beads 
its necklace of crystal among the roots, and great 
velvet butterflies wheel in the air in broken starts, 
like falling chestnut-leaves. 

At the bottom of a hollow filled with plants, ap- 
pears the hospice of Bagneres, a heavy house of 
stone, which serves as a refuge. The mountains 
open opposite it their amphitheatre of rock, a huge 



502 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

and blasted pit ; to crown the whole the clouds 
have gathered, and dull the rent enclosure which 
fences off the horizon — enclosure that winds with 
dreary air, perfectly barren, with the grinning army 
of its pinnacles, its raw cuts, its murderous steeps ; 
beneath the dome of clouds, wheels a band of 
screaming crows. This well seems their eyry ; 
wings are needed to escape the hostility of all 
those bristling points, and of so many yawning 
gulfs which draw on the passer in order to dash 
him to atoms. 

Soon the road seems brought to an end ; wall 
after wall, the serried rocks obstruct every outlet ; 
still you advance, zigzag, among rounded blocks, 
along a falling stairway ; the wind sweeps down 
these, howling. No sign of life, no herbage ; every- 
where the horrible nakedness and the chill of win- 
ter. Squat rocks lean beetling over the precipice ; 
others project their heads to meet one another ; 
between them the eye plunges into dark gulfs whose 
bottom it cannot reach. The violent juttings of all 
parts advance and rise, piercing the air ; down there, 
at the bottom, they spring forward in lines, climb- 
ing over one another, in heaps, bristling against the 
sky their hedge of pikes. Suddenly in this terrible 
battalion a cleft is opened ; the Maladetta springs 
up like a great spectre ; forests of shivered pines 
wind about its foot ; a girdle of black rocks cm- 



w— ' 




Chap. V. 



LUCHON. 



505 



bosses its arid breast, and the glaciers make it a 
crown. 




Nothing is dead, and in respect to this our feeble 
organs deceive us ; those mountain skeletons seem 
to us inert because our eyes are used to the mobile 
vegetation of the plains ; but nature is eternally 
alive, and its forces struggle together in these 
sepulchres of granite and snow, as well as in the 



5o6 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

human hives or the most flourishing- forests. Each 
particle of rock presses or supports its neighbors ; 
their apparent immobiHty is an equiUbrium of for- 
ces ; everything works and struggles ; nothing is 
calm and nothintr uniform. Those blocks that the 
eye takes to be massive are networks of atoms infi- 
nitely removed from each other, drawn by innume- 
rable and contrary attractions, invisible labyrinths 
where unceasing transformations are wrought out, 
where ferments the mineral life, as active as other 
lives, but grander. And ours, what is it, confined 
within the experience of a few years and the memory 
of a few centuries ? What are we, but a transitory 
excrescence, formed of a little thickened air, grown 
by chance in a cleft of the eternal rock ? What is 
our thought, so high in dignity, so little in power ? 
The mineral substance and its forces are the real 
possessors and the only masters of the world. 
Pierce below this crust which sustains us as far as 
that crucible of lava which tolerates us. Here 
strive and are developed the great forces, the heat 
and the affinities which have formed the soil, have 
composed the rocks which support our life, have 
furnished its cradle for it, and are preparing its 
tomb. Everything here is transformed and stirs as 
in the heart of a tree ; and our race, nested on a 
point of the bark, perceives not that silent vegeta- 
tion which has lifted the trunk, spread the branches, 



Chap. V. 



LUC HON. 



507 




and whose invincible progress brings in turns 
flowers, fruits and death. Meanwhile a vaster 
movement bears the planet with its companions 
around the sun, borne itself 
toward an unknown goal, in 
the infinite space wherein ed- 
dies the infinite people of the 
worlds. Who will say that 
they are not there merely to 
decorate and fill it? These 
great rolling masses are the 
first thought and the broader 
development of nature ; they 
live by the same right wath 
ourselves, they are sons of 
the same mother, and we rec- 
ognize in them our kin and 
elders. 

But in this family there are 
ranks. I know I am but an 
atom ; to annihilate me, the 
least of these stones would 

suffice ; a bone half as thick as my thumb is 
the wretched cuirass that defends my thought 
from delirium and death ; my entire action and 
that of all the machines invented within sixty 
centuries would not avail to scrape one of the 
leaves of the mineral crust that supports and 




5o8 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

nurtures me. And yet in this all-powerful nature 
I count for something. If among her works I am 
the most fragile, I am also the last ; if she con- 
fines me within a corner of her expanse, it is in me 
that she ends. It is in me that she attains the in- 
divisible point where she is concentred and per- 
fected ; and this mind through which she knows 
herself opens to her a new career in reproducing 
her works, imitating her order, penetrating her 
work, feeling its magnificence and eternity. In it 
is opened a second world reflecting the other, re- 
flecting itself also, and, beyond itself and that 
other, grasping the eternal law which engenders 
them both. To-morrow I shall die, and I am not 
capable of displacing any portion of this rock. But 
during one moment I have thought, and within the 
limits of that thouorht nature and the universe were 
comprehended. 





CHAPTER VI. 



TOULOUSE. 



L 



When, after a two months' sojourn in the Pyre- 
nees, you leave Luchon, and see the flat country 
near Martres, you are delighted and breathe freely : 
you were tired, without knowing it, of those eternal 
barriers that shut in the horizon; you needed 
space. You felt that the air and light were 
usurped by those monstrous protuberances, and 
that you were not in a land of men, but in a land of 
mountains. Unknown to yourself you longed for a 
real champaign, free and broad. That of Martres 
is as level as a sheet of water, populous, fertile, 
stocked with good plants, well cultivated, con- 
venient for life, a realm of abundance and security. 



5IO 



BAGNERES AND LUCHON. 



Book IV. 



There is no doubt that a field of brown earth, 
broadly ploughed with deep fijrrows, is a noble 
sight, and that the labor and happiness of civilized 




ST. UERTRAND IJE COMMIMCIHS (BETWEEN LUCHON AND TOULOUSE 



man are as pleasant to behold as the ruggedness 
of the untamed rocks. A highway white and flat 
led in a straight line to the very horizon, and ended 
in a cluster of red houses ; the peaked belfry lifted 
its needle into the sky ; but for the sun, it would 
pass for a Flemish landscape. In the streets there 



libJ:!! 




:U-V ,!i ,.^:,te')>i,ri.;.'i,|',v 




Chap. VI. TOULOUSE. 513 



were Van Ostade's interiors. Old houses, roofs of 
uneven thatch, leaning one upon another, machines 
for hemp displayed in the doorways, little court- 
yards filled with tubs, wheelbarrows, straw, chil- 
dren, animals — a gay and well-to-do air ; above all 
the great illuminator of the country, the universal 
decorator, the everlasting giver of joy, the sun 
poured in profusion its beautiful warm light over 
the walls of ruddy brick, and patched with strong 
shadows the white roughcast. 



II. 



Toulouse appears, all red with bricks, amidst the 
red dust of evening. 

A melancholy city, with narrow and flinty streets. 
The town hall, called Capitole, has but one narrow 
entrance, commonplace halls, a pronounced and ele- 
gant fa9ade in the taste of the decorations for pub- 
lic festivals. In order that no one may doubt its 
antiquity, they have inscribed on it the word Capi- 
tolium. The cathedral, dedicated to St. Stephen, 
is remarkable only for one pleasant memory : 

" Towards the year 1027," says Pierre de Marca, 
" it was the custom at Toulouse to box a Jew's 
ears in public on Easter day, in the Church of St. 
Stephen. Hugues, chaplain to Aimery, Viscount 



514 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



de Rochechouart, being at Toulouse in his master's 
suite, dealt the Jew a blow with such force that 
it crushed his head and made his brains and eyes 
to fall out, as Adhemar has observed in his 
chronicle." 

The choir where Adhemar made this observation 
is Avanting in neither beauty nor grandeur ; but 
what strikes you most on leaving the mountains, is 
the museum. You find anew thought, passion, 
genius, art, all the most beautiful flowers of human 
civilization. 

It is a broad, well-lighted hall, flanked by two 
small galleries of greater height, which form a 
semicircle, and filled with pictures of all the 
schools, some of which are excellent. A Murillo, 
representing St. Diego and his Monks : )'Ou recog- 
nize in it the monastic harshness, the master's 
sentiment of reality, his originality of expression and 
earnest vigor. A Martyrdom of St. Andrew, by 
Caravaggio, black and horrible. Several pictures 
by the Caracci, Guercino and Guido. A Ceremony 
of the Order of the Holy Ghost in 1635, by Philip 
de Champagne. These most real, delicate and 
noble faces are portraits of the time ; you see the 
contemporaries of Louis XIII. in life. Here are 
the correct drawing, temperate color, conscientious 
but not literal exactness of a Fleming become a 
Frenchman. A charming Marquise de Largilliere, 




^'^^''mmmfmmmvmsiiiiii 



Chap. VI. TOULOUSE. 517 

with a wasp waist in blue velvet, elegant and 
haughty. A Christ Crucified, by Rubens, the eyes 
glassy, flesh livid — a powerful sketch, wherein the 
cold whiteness of the faded tints exhales the fright- 
ful poetry of death. 

I name only the most striking ; but the liveliest 
sensation comes from the modern pictures. They 
transport the mind all at once to Paris, into the 
midst of our discussions, into the inventive and 
troubled world of the modern arts, the immense 
laboratory where so many fruitful and opposing 
forces weave the work of a renewing century : A 
celebrated picture by Glaize, the Death of St. John 
the Baptist j the half-naked butcher who holds the 
head is a superb brute, a careless instrument of 
death which has just done its work well. An ele- 
gant and affected painting by Schoppin, Jacob be- 
fore Laban and his two Daitghters. The daughters 
of Laban are pretty drawing-room misses who 
have just disguised themselves as Arabs. Mtdey 
Abd-el-Rhaman, by Eugene Delacroix. He is 
motionless on a bluish and melancholy horse. 
Files of soldiers are presenting arms, packed in 
masses in a stifling atmosphere ; dull heads, stupid 
and real, hooded with the white bournous ; ruined 
towers are piled behind them under a leaden sun. 
The crude colors, the heavy garments, bronzed 
limbs, massive parasols, that lifeless and animal ex- 



5i8 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 

pression are the revelation of a land where thought 
sleeps overwhelmed and buried under the weight 
of barbarism, of the religion and the climate. In a 
corner of the small gallery is the first brilliant 
stroke of Couture, The Thii'st of Gold. All misery 
and every temptation come to solicit the miser : a 
mother and her starving child, an artist reduced to 
beggary, two half-nude courtesans. He gazes at 
them with sorrowful ardor, but the hooked fingers 
cannot let go the gold. His lips shrivel, his 
cheeks glow, his burning eyes are fastened to their 
wanton bosoms. It is the torture of the heart torn 
by the rebellion of the senses, the concentrated 
despair of repressed desire, the bitter tyranny of the 
ruling passion. Never did face better express the 
soul. The drawing is bold, the color superb, more 
daring than in the Romans of the Decadence, so 
lively that you forget to notice a few crude tones, 
hazarded in the transport of composition. 

It is perhaps too much praise. All these mod- 
erns are poets who have determined to be painters. 
One has sought out dramas in history, another 
scenes of manners ; one translates religions, another 
a philosophy. Such an one imitates Raphael, such 
another the early Italian masters ; the landscapist 
employs trees and clouds to compose odes or 
elegies. No one is simply a painter ; they are all 
archaeologists, psychologists, giving setting to 



Chap. VI. 



TOULOUSE. 



519 



some memory or theory. They please our learn- 
ing, our philosophy. Like ourselves, they are full 
and overflowing with general ideas, Parisians un- 
easy and curious. They live too much by the 
brain, and too little by the senses ; they have too 




CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, TOULOUSE. 



much wit and too little artlessness. They do not 
love a form for its own sake, but for what it ex- 
presses ; and if they chance to love it, it is volun- 
tarily, with an acquired taste, from an antiquary's 
superstition. They are children of a wise genera- 
tion, harassed and thoughtful, in which men who 
have won equality and the freedom of thought, 
and of shaping each for himself his religion, rank, 



520 BAGNERES AND LUCHON. Book IV. 



and fortune, wish to find in art the expression of 
their anxieties and meditations. They are a thou- 
sand leagues away from the first masters, workmen 
or cavaHers, who Hved out-of-doors, scarcely read 
at all, and thought only of giving a feast for their 
eyes. It is for that that I love them ; I feel like 
them because I am of their century. Sympathy is 
the best source of admiration and pleasure. 



III. 



Below the museum is a square tower enclosed by 
a gallery of slender columns, which towards the top 
bend and are cut into trefoils, forming a border of 
arcades. They have gathered under this gallery 
all the antiquities of the country : fragments of 
Roman statues, severe busts of emperors, ascetic 
virgins of the middle ages, bas-reliefs from churches 
and temples, knights of stone lying all armed 
upon their tombs. The court was deserted and 
silent ; tall slender trees, tufted shrubbery, were 
bright with the loveliest green. A dazzling sun- 
light fell on the red tiles of the gallery ; an old 
fountain, loaded with little columns and heads of 
animals, murmured near to a bench of rose-veined 
marble. A statue of a young man was seen 
amidst the branches ; stems of green hops climbed 



Chap. VI. 



TOULOUSE. 



52: 



up around broken columns. This mixture of rustic 
objects and objects of art, these wrecks of two dead 
civiHzations and the youth of flowery plants, the 
joyous rays on the old tiles, united in their con- 
trasts all that I had seen for two months. 




THE END. 



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